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In the past twenty years Manhattan's Randall's Island has experienced a
revitalization of its natural landscape
and has become a valuable space for sports and recreation
the Randall's Island Sports Foundation has been instrumental in this transformation
If you came here just a few years ago
you would probably see a very different Randall's Island where now there are beautiful ball fields
where people can play soccer and baseball there used to be wornout
fields with actually glass and
and it was much different
This past summer Randall's Island Sports Foundation
decided to partner with the YAI network to create an internship for
graduates of YAI's employment training program
it was a great experience
and we had three interns and they were all great but
at the end of the day the best fit was Elton joining our team and
we really felt like
honestly we're not doing anyone any favors
he's just part of the team and he can do the job simply put
For Elton working at Randall's Island
provided an introduction to the world of work
As a gardeners assistant
he's learning a unique set of skills developing a passion for plants and
feels that he's a part of the larger goals of restoring Randall's Island
working here has been great
I've learned a lot of things that I thought I'd never learn
how to weed how to garden planting trees cleaning
you know just making the island look better
watching Elton develop from an Intern
to a part time employees was a very exciting experience
He started off
with no job experience
coming directly from our program
but what was his to his advantage
was his enthusiasm working here
Building on the support he gets from his job coach
Elton has learned to enjoy the variation of independence and teamwork
working with my coworkers has been great also
I get to learn from them
Elton has been of pleasure to work with
from the start he's somebody who asks questions when he needs to he's always willing to push
himself he works hard is willing to work side by side with us during
almost any any sort of conditions heat mosquitoes
doesn't complain just works hard right now we're preparing for the winter
trying to get all the dead leaves out of the way
raking them and getting ready
for when winter comes we want to do another internship this April
and again we're going to hire a couple YAI interns for the summer
and see how it works out at the end of summer and the hope is to employ
another person