karadin:In 2009, the St. Paul (Minn.) Parks and Recreation Department Youth Job Corps, Inver Hills C
karadin:In 2009, the St. Paul (Minn.) Parks and Recreation Department Youth Job Corps, Inver Hills Community College, the St. Paul Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity Department and the St. Paul Fire Department came together to start an innovative new program: Use Job Corps grant money to pay low-income young people $7.50 an hour to become EMTs.“When we started the program, some of the things we ran into we’d never envisioned,” says St. Paul Fire Chief Tim Butler, who has worked with social services to get the EMT students the resources they needed. “Some needed to know the bus schedule so they could get there, or how to get daycare for the kids because they were single moms, or needed eyeglasses so they could read the EMT book.”More than 100 young men and women — some of whom were in the foster system or homeless when they entered the program — have become certified EMTs. Classes are held in a vacant fire station that was converted into classrooms and training areas. To help in job placement and help make the program self-sustaining, in 2011, the St. Paul Fire Department also started a BLS scheduled transport service, staffed by the Job Corps EMT graduates.After hearing about the parallels between the young medics of Pittsburgh in the ’60s and their new crop of EMTs, the folks in St. Paul decided to name their service St. Paul Fire Department’s Freedom House Station 51. Starzenski and several former Freedom medics have gone to Minnesota to screen the documentary and meet with the young EMTs.“I’m glad we have over 100 new medics in Minneapolis-St. Paul because of Freedom House,” Starzenski says. “That’s what I’m more proud of than anything. It’s paying it forward.” -- source link