By Madeleine List
Journal Staff Writer
JOHNSTON — Thanks to a three-year, $1.5-million grant, a statewide nonprofit agency helping Rhode Islanders gain job skills can expand its summer internship program for youth.
At a news conference at the Citizens Bank headquarters on Monday, Gov. Gina Raimondo announced the grant from American Student Assistance, a national organization that helps students pursue post-secondary education and careers.
The money will go to Skills for Rhode Island’s Future for its PrepareRI internship program, which trains high-school seniors in business skills and places them in paid summer internships with partner companies.
“We know this initiative is a success because we’ve seen it,” Raimondo said. “We’re seeing it and it’s working.”
Nina Pande founded Skills for Rhode Island’s Future in 2016, and serves as its executive director. The PrepareRI internship program, which receives about $1.5 million from the state each year, has placed a total of 488 students with employers, Pande said.
This year, with the help of the grant, the organization plans to place 425 students and hire three new job coaches.
For the student interns, the experience can be life-changing.
“I think one of the major parts is learning who I am as a person and what it means to be in the work force,” said Jeshua Benzant, 17, of Providence, who interned last summer with Lifespan.
Virsavia Goretoy, 18, of West Warwick, said she interned at Citizens Bank through the program and was happy to be treated like an adult and given responsibilities in her position.
“I was held to a very high standard and I got out a lot of skills that I didn’t know I had,” she said.
After interning at the building company Gilbane, Jonathan Weigand said he feels better prepared to make decisions about college and find employment in the future.
“It gave me the tools that I needed to find a lot of purpose and answered a lot of questions about what I want to do in pursuing higher education,” said the 17-year-old from Cumberland.
Barbara Cottam, Rhode Island market executive for Citizens Bank and chairwoman of the state Board of Education, said the PrepareRI program helps mitigate inequality by expanding access to careers for young people.
“We have a huge equity gap where, depending on your zip code, often there’s different levels of access to opportunity, to network, to get into the job market,” she said, “and I think this program is phenomenal. It brings in all students, it is blind to any of those barriers, and it gives each student a summer experience in a professional environment where they can contribute to the company and also define their career paths and what they want to do.”