We found out early Wednesday morning that the DC Summer Jobs Program will now end on Friday, August 6th. The program was intended to last about eight weeks, through August 17th.

Due to the truncated schedule, Outreach Manager Quynn Johnson pulled all 50 of the teens in our Step Ahead program together to discuss the situation and to decide how they wanted to deal with it. (Fortunately, this happened in the middle of our week dedicated to Conflict Resolution, so everyone in the room was equipped with the skills to come to a decision they could all support!)

Even though they will not be getting paid, 95% our teens still want to rehearse next week to finish up their job: putting on a show for the community next Friday.

This bears repeating: Over 45 DC teens are willing and committed to work 30 hours next week, unpaid, to continue rehearsing and preparing for a show for their family and friends. Those are pretty amazing kids. We are honored to have spent the past five weeks with them in our Atlas studios.

Please join us in applauding these teens’ dedication at their show, “Faces of Dance,” on August 13th at 6:00 p.m. at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. It’s the full experience of Step Ahead that they are committed to, not just the paycheck.