Wegmans' Work-Scholarship Program for At-Risk Youth Boosts Graduation Rates to 84 Percent

Employee Relations, Jobs, Skills and Training

The Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection program founded in 1987 by Wegmans Food Markets started as a solution to address high employee turnover among its high school students and to help improve the low high school graduation rates in the city school district.  For the past 28 years, Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection (HW-SC) has earned national recognition as an innovative leading solution to poverty and the abysmal high school graduation rate, delivering consistent, measurable results for school districts and their students in the areas of high school graduation, college and career readiness, and employment.  The program provides a full-time, paid, professional youth advocate who engages students and families and helps them connect to academic, workforce and social supports.  Each advocate optimizes the potential of students and is held accountable for them achieving high school graduation, college readiness skills, job training and a part-time employment experience.  Results of the program and community impact include:

• Since the program's inception, over 5,000 young people have graduated from urban high schools and have become productive citizens in the communities where they live and work today.
• Of the students who stay in the program, 84% graduate high school.
• The students who work during high school graduate at the rate of 94 percent in four years.

"We all need young people with a positive attitude, who are responsible, can work on teams, make good decisions and communicate with our customers. These are our future employees and working with the Hillside Work-Scholarship Program is one way of growing our future talent," said Gerrard Pierce, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Wegmans Food Markets. There are currently over 4,000 students in the program today in New York and Maryland.  Companies wishing to participate in the program or learn more may contact Jaime Fall, Vice President for Workforce and Talent Sustainability for HR Policy Foundation, at [email protected].