For decades, parents have suggested that their teen children go out and get jobs for the summer. Students coming home from college are also encouraged to get a job to help them pay for school.
Whether that involves working in a store, working in the parks and recreation department or something else, summer jobs have long been a way for teens to earn spending money and gain work experience that can help them when they begin their careers.
Paducah Parks & Recreation Director Amie Clark said the department hires 50 to 65 students in a typical year for summer work.
“Those are employees that work in our summer camp programs and our youth leagues as well as at the Noble Park pool,” she said. “Last year, we didn’t have anything, and then, this year, we’ve been reduced-capacity, so we’ve only hired, probably, maybe 25 seasonal staff, so we’re down to about one-third of what we typically hire.”
Summer employees generally work for parks & rec from May through August.
“Typically, the kids that work for us love coming back, and we get three or four different summers out of them,” Clark said. “It’s definitely a good job for high school and college-age kids.”
Clark began her duties as the department director on Dec. 17, but she has been with the department since 2003.
“I actually started as an intern in my first summer, and then I was hired a year later for full-time,” she said.
Students interested in summer work through the Paducah Parks and Recreation Department should fill out an application at the city’s website at paducahky.gov/human-resources.
“All of our applications go through the city’s website,” Clark said. “Then, they get routed to us and we bring (applicants) in for interviews.”
Aside from Clark, there have been a number of former Paducah summer workers who have found their careers there.
“We actually have several full-time employees — not currently, but throughout the years — who started out here as interns and then finished college and ended up coming back for full-time positions,” Clark said. “It definitely is a great position that kind of opens up the world of recreation. People don’t really realize all of the things you can do in a recreation degree.
“Working in parks and recreation is a great experience for students. It gives them a different perspective. We work with all kinds of families from all different backgrounds and all different social classes; it’s very diverse and inclusive. It’s just a well-rounded perspective for our staff and it’s a lot of fun.”
Another area where parks & rec employees can be found is through the city’s Mobile Rec program.
“Mobile Rec is the concept of us taking recreation to the neighborhoods,” Clark said. “In years past, we’ve always offered summer camp in Noble Park and we’ve had our kids come to us for summer camp, but now, we take the recreation to them at their neighborhood park.
“We’ve been driving around on Fridays and bringing out different kinds of activities and arts and crafts and just doing them on-site right there in the neighborhoods.”
McCracken County Road Engineer Randy Williams said his department uses summer job hires to ease the workload of the full-time road department workers as the department’s work increases over the summer.
“Normally, we try to hire six summer kids — that’s kids in college,” he said. “We’ve been able to do it in the past, but this year, we weren’t able to.
“We have them as general labor. That means they could be out mowing, we have them flagging on the job sites on the road, we have them doing shovel work — just about any general labor-type job that we can come up with.”
Williams said the summer workers help his department achieve more in other areas.
“(Summer workers) free up some of our full-time guys, and we’re able to get a lot more done on the road during the time when we need to get more done on the road,” he said. “Summertime is our best time to get the hot mix paving done and dirt work done when it’s dry enough.
“Summer is our best time to be working, and that’s when we can use the most help.”
Williams said he was able to fill five of the six positions this year.
“We had four at the beginning of summer, and we just now got another one added on,” he said. “We’ve got one leaving (Friday), but we’ve got another one that’s going to start Monday, so it’s still only going to be five of the six positions that we’ve been able to fill.”
Williams said this was the first year all of the positions have not been filled in the road department. He said he believed part of the reason may be that there are other businesses that are having problems finding people to hire that students have moved toward.
“We are appreciative of the help that we get,” he said. “They’ve done a good job for us.”
Those interested in being a temporary summer worker for the county road department for the summer of 2022 can fill out an application available through mccrackencountyky.gov at any time during the year.
The application should be emailed to the road department at rwilliams@mccrackencountyky.gov or brought to the department office at 3700 Coleman Road. This is for temporary summer workers only.
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