Today, we need your support now more than ever.

Over the past 13 years, STL Youth Jobs (STLYJ) has provided paid work experiences to more than 7,500 underserved young people in partnership with nearly 500 local employers.

We have greatly appreciated your support but—for the first time in recent years—we’ve had to cut the number of youth we’re able to serve this coming summer. Up to this point, we’ve provided paid summer work experiences for an average of 400 youth and young adults each summer while maintaining waiting lists of hundreds more.

But thus far for 2026, we will only be able to serve around 280 young people.

This is due to drastic cuts in public funding for nonprofits as well as increases in the minimum wage (from $13.75 last year to $15.00 this year) that we pay to Summer Work Experience participants. (Our Career Accelerator Pathway, or CAP, participants are older and more advanced and earn $17.00 an hour). The difficult decision to reduce our numbers means that we will have even more youth on this year's waiting list--youth who are motivated, who want to work, and are looking for productive ways to spend their summer.

We want our youth wages to be equitable and competitive with other local youth opportunities—but we need YOUR SUPPORT now more than ever to ensure we are able to continue serving youth in these uncertain times when young people truly need the developmental programming, coaching/mentoring, and stability that we offer.

We’ve set a goal of $10,000 for this “Now More Than Ever: The Youth Jobs Campaign”. An additional $10,000 would support the wages of five (5) additional Summer Work Experience participant in 2026. We are asking for individual donations of $27 (which covers a youth’s week-long bus pass for transportation to and from work), $78 (which covers a month-long bus pass), $100 (for specialized clothes/shoes for one youth worker as required by their employer). Donations of $250 and above are eligible for Missouri tax credits at 50% of your total contribution.

Help us bring opportunities back to more youth this summer. We greatly appreciate any donation amount for Summer 2026!