Tens of thousands of kids and teens learned, laughed and earned through City of Sacramento this year
Sacramento (May 10, 2022) In the last fiscal year alone, more than 60,000 young people participated in education, training or recreation programs sponsored by the City of Sacramento, its police and fire departments or the Sacramento Public Library.
More than 200 of those young people, with an average age of 15, were paid a stipend to work on service projects through the new #SacYouthWorks program. More than 3,000 spent their weekend evenings at one of the Pop-Up events staged by various non-profit entities with City funding. More than 3,000 kids read five books or more in the library’s Summer Reading Challenge. Hundreds of young people received training through police and fire summer camps, academies and cadet programs. Collectively, young people participated in 3.2 million hours of enrichment or recreation.
Staff from the primary City agencies serving youth provided an overview to City Council Tuesday describing the scale and reach of youth programming in fiscal 2021-22, and how it has grown since the City Council adopted Sacramento’s Youth Development Plan in 2018 and hired Lindee Lane as the City’s first Youth Development Policy Manager.
“The city’s youth development team and grantee partners are on the front lines doing amazing work,” said Lane. “In the aftermath of COVID-19 and increased gun violence in our city youth needs and priorities will continue to increase.”
The City is spending $38.2 million on programs directly serving youth in the fiscal year that ends June 30, the highest amount ever. About 85 percent of that spending came from the general fund, mostly from Measure U. The rest came from the City’s federal Covid relief funding.
