Latest news with #summerjob
Yahoo
08-08-2025
- General
- Yahoo
I didn't want my son to overdose on screen time this summer, so we're fostering a puppy. He's learning responsibility and time management.
My 14-year-old fostered a puppy after failing to find a summer job or secure volunteer work. The experience taught him responsibility, patience, and the value of non-monetary rewards. The experience was so good that the dog ended up staying with us longer than we expected. When my 14-year-old son couldn't land a summer job — or even a volunteering gig — I worried the season would pass him by with no sense of purpose, no high school volunteer hours, and nothing to anchor his days other than endlessly watching Minecraft videos. I wasn't fixated on him earning a paycheck. What mattered more was finding something meaningful to do, something that would build confidence and help him grow. He tried. He applied to several jobs online — the public library, a local physiotherapy clinic, a few summer camps — but never heard back. And he wasn't confident enough to walk into stores and ask for jobs in person. We eventually had a crazy idea, and signed up to foster a rescue puppy. A foster puppy offered a unique experience I reached out to Niagara Dog Rescue, a local nonprofit that places dogs in temporary homes. I asked if we could foster a puppy, just for a short time, enough for him to earn his community service hours and feel like he was doing something worthwhile. They agreed. We already had a family dog, a rescue named Cookie who joined us 18 months ago. At the time, my son was still figuring out how to be around dogs. He didn't really know how to care for Cookie, and in many ways, she trained him: teaching him patience, boundaries, and how to communicate without words. This time, he'd be the one in charge. Mirage offered a challenge The puppy they placed with us was named Mirage. She was a sloppy, black-furred bundle of nervous energy that clung to my son on the first day, partly out of fear, partly out of curiosity. He didn't mind. He scooped her up, showed her around the backyard, and promised her she'd be safe. That first week was no walk in the park — even though we took plenty of them together. Mirage wasn't house trained and although crate-trained, she didn't sleep through the night. She howled in the dark, chewed anything she could find, and had more energy than the rest of us combined. But my son never once suggested we return her early. Forget apps, Mirage was his new alarm system, going off every morning at 5:30 a.m. with a bark that couldn't be ignored. He played with her for hours, helped her learn leash manners, and taught her basic commands using treats and encouragement. He also cleaned up her pee and poop without complaint, sometimes before the rest of us were even awake. It wasn't glamorous, but he handled it like someone who understood that care isn't always cute. When it was time to say goodbye — it wasn't After 10 days, I assumed our time with Mirage was over. We'd kept up our end of the deal: my son had logged his required school hours, and Mirage had become calmer, more confident, and undeniably attached to him. But just before we were scheduled to return her, the rescue organization contacted us again. They asked if we'd be willing to keep her a little longer, until the end of the summer. When I told my son, he jumped up and shouted, "Yes!" He didn't even ask if it meant more credit. That had stopped mattering. With Mirage's stay extended, he came up with a new arrangement: he and his 12-year-old brother would take turns sleeping with the dogs. That way, they could alternate early morning duties — one waking up with Mirage at 5:30 a.m., while the other got to sleep in. His brother had never been especially great at taking responsibility — he was more the comic relief than the caregiver in our household. But with Mirage, something shifted. He rose to the occasion, taking initiative and learning what it meant to be part of a team. It wasn't just about chores, it became shared rhythm between the brothers who were both learning what it means to show up for someone else. He didn't earn a paycheck, but he got something better Watching my son care for Mirage taught me a lot, not just about him, but about how we think about work, especially for young people. He didn't earn a paycheck this summer. He didn't learn to use a cash register or stock shelves. But he did learn how to wake up before he wanted to. He learned to be calm when someone else was freaking out. He learned that sometimes, someone else's needs come before your own, even if that someone is a teething puppy. Most importantly, he gained a quiet kind of pride. Not the résumé-building kind. The kind that comes from being trusted and showing you're worthy of it. Mirage is still with us for now, but she has been adopted. She'll be picked up later this month to go to her forever home. When I told my son, he sat quietly for a moment, then smiled and said, "I hope they have a big backyard," and added, "I am going to miss her terribly." For all the talk about Gen Z and Gen Alpha being screen-addicted or unmotivated, I saw something completely different this summer: a teenager who showed up — every day — for something that couldn't thank him with money, only love. Read the original article on Business Insider
CBC
06-08-2025
- Automotive
- CBC
'I've got to be the job': Tecumseh teen launches car wash after applying for 100 jobs and getting none
A Tecumseh teenager who was unable to find a summer job despite applying for more than 100 of them has gone viral on social media for starting a car wash in front of his family home. Batista Cervini started the car wash four days ago, he said, and has washed around four or five cars a day at $20 per car for a half-hour wash. "Nobody wanted to hire me," the 16-year-old said. "So if there's no jobs, I've got to be the job, you know?" Windsor regained its position as the city with the highest unemployment rate in Canada in June as unemployment rose to 11.2 per cent. It also had the highest youth unemployment among census metropolitan areas in Canada in 2024, at around 20 per cent. What's more, the overall unemployment rate rose last month despite stagnant population growth, a reversal of a trend seen over the past two years in which rising unemployment has been blamed on population growth outpacing job growth. Not a single interview Now there's a near-record-high number of people looking for work, according to Workforce WindsorEssex. Cervini applied to dozens of entry-level jobs, including jobs at restaurants, hoping to earn money for college so he can study to become a paramedic, he said. But he didn't get a single interview. "It's pretty disappointing, honestly, because people say they're hiring, but I don't see it," he said. But, he said, he doesn't believe in giving up in hard times. "God is making something big coming," he said. "When you want to give up, that's when you keep on going." Cervini stands in front of his family home on Lesperance Road from 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. holding a sign advertising his business. People tell him they respect his hustle, he said. Asked what kind of pitch he'd give to employers thinking of hiring him, he said, "I'm a hard-working young man. I do not give up, and I believe I would be a really good candidate. I always try my best – 100 per cent effort or nothing." Potential employers reaching out Already potential employers have posted messages on social media offering interviews. And one showed up to court Cervini personally. The owner of Piskey's Mobile Auto Wash and Detailing said he decided to spend a day helping Cervini wash cars after his clients kept forwarding him social media posts about him. "If he wants now, he can come with me for the rest of the summer … and we can just go wash cars house to house," Luke Piskovic said. "He's already got work ethic. He's standing out here with a sign. I'd rather hire on that than schooling." Piskovic called himself an advocate for entrepreneurship and said washing cars, picking weeds or doing other tasks people need done is a better way to earn money than working at a fast food job. One of Cervini's customers said she admired his initiative and wanted to support him and show kids they can achieve anything if they work hard.
CBC
24-07-2025
- Automotive
- CBC
This Tecumseh teen is scrubbing his way to a summer job, after more than 100 applications and no interviews
A Tecumseh teenager who was unable to find a summer job despite sending out more than 100 applications has gone viral on social media for starting a car wash in front of his family home. Before the end of the day, he had some job offers to consider. The CBC's Pratyush Dayal reports.
Bloomberg
26-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
How to Turn Your Kid's Summer Earnings Into $100,000
Your child could earn over $100,000 by working at a pool or an ice cream shop this summer. The trick: you have to invest all their earnings until they're retired. That's the idea behind a custodial Roth IRA.
Globe and Mail
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Globe and Mail
The summer job that put actor Tantoo Cardinal at the heart of a tiny Alberta town
After a school year away in the big city, a teenaged Tantoo Cardinal returned home to the tiny hamlet of Anzac, Alta., and fell into a summer job at the town's only store. In this latest instalment of The Globe's 'How I Spent My Summer' series, the legendary Dances with Wolves and Legends of the Fall actor and activist shares how she learned that some gigs are worth well more than the money – even at a buck an hour. I'm from Anzac, Alberta. It's just an hour southeast of Fort McMurray on the highway now, but this was 1966 before the road went in. Fort McMurray was just starting to be known as a boom town. I was 16. A year before that, I'd essentially left the Anzac community to go to high school in Edmonton, but now I was back home for the summer. I never had to look for a job in Anzac, but I always had one: I babysat, I dug potatoes on farms, I filled in at the Fort McMurray hospital answering phones for my sister-aunt – she's my grandmother's baby, nine years older than me, and I was raised by my grandmother, so that's how she became my 'sister-aunt.' I spent most of my free time hanging around the Anzac store. Anzac was a very small community and it had only one store, Willow Lake Mercantile, for everything: Groceries, clothes, supplies. We sold rope and oil for lamps and gas, eventually. Things that are useful for rural people, and we either had what they wanted or we didn't. Once a week, the train would go through from Edmonton to Fort McMurray, and that was pretty much our lifeline for outside merchandise. We got what we got. I didn't apply or anything to work at the store, because I wasn't that kind of person. But since I was there hanging around all the time anyhow, the manager would give me things to do. I'd tally up people's goods, I'd straighten things up, I'd sweep the floor and stock the shelves. Whatever had to be done. This wasn't a city store with a staff. Sometimes I'd be there all by myself managing the whole place. The summer that Joshua Jackson realized he wasn't a morning person They paid me like a dollar an hour, I think, which was better than before, when I did the same job for free. My family had briefly been keepers of the store, but other people manage it now. It was nice to earn a little bit of money, but I didn't need or buy much and wasn't all that into money anyhow. At 16, I had no sense of the value of time. The job was just something to do and I didn't mind doing it. There was nothing to love or hate about the job, I was just kind of doing life. I knew I wouldn't be there forever – it was just what I was doing right now to get by. I think this mentality helped me survive in the world of acting for a long time. Money wasn't the prominent reward; the prominent reward was being around people you wanted to be around. We counted once and Anzac only had 99 people. If someone new got off the train, it was a big deal. If we didn't know them at all, we'd call them 'beatniks,' but usually we'd find out they were connected to the community somehow and then we knew them too. I wasn't much of a salesperson because I wasn't very talkative, but I was a really good listener. With the road going in, there were so many major changes occurring all around. People from Fort McMurray would soon have access to our lake, and there was all this dust in the air from people driving in and leaving their trash around. There was this sense that things were changing and it wasn't gonna be just us anymore. It felt like the walls were coming down around this little world we had going on. This was all so different from my new life in Edmonton, which had been a bit of a culture shock, because I didn't know anybody. If you were friendly with somebody, they looked at you like there was something wrong with you and ignored you. Here, I knew everyone and had known most all of them all my life, which I recognized was very special but wouldn't last. As told to Rosemary Counter
