BOYLE - Students can learn a lot about personal responsibility, financial literacy and time management by seeking out a job while still in high school, but depending on the employer, there could be other perks involved as well.
Graduating students from Boyle School and Thorhild Central School were recognized for their accomplishment last week as North Corridor Co-op stores in those two communities sent four graduates, on the threshold of adulthood, off into the real world with not only a bevy of collected experiences they can now apply to their adult lives, but a tip of the hat and a gift from an appreciative employer too.
Co-op has been offering this benefit to its young employees for more than 10 years now. The only catch is they must still be employed at the end of the school year and they must graduate, said general manager Chris Weiss.
Boyle grads Savannah Grier and Ethan Langevin along with Thorhild grads Zoey Feledichuck and Colton Anderson were the recipients of $4,000 as part of Co-op’s graduate program that sees an extra 50 cents per hour worked put into a graduation fund for student employees, which is then distributed when they graduate.
This year, those four students worked more than 8,000 hours combined, resulting in grad gifts of more than $4,000.
“We feel this program not only benefits the students employed with us as a monetary benefit, but as an employer, we gain the loyalty of our students and the benefit of a long term employee,” said Weiss.
