Organizers of the effort to create 3,000 jobs for Cincinnati youths said Friday that the goal proved too ambitious for the amount of time they had to create and administer the program.

        The Summer Youth Employment Initiative raised $2.9 million from public and private sources, organizers said, but only 1,935 youths were placed in jobs, about 1,000 fewer than city and business leaders had promised after April unrest.

Pepper

Watts

        “The numbers may not be what the community was expecting. The numbers were the best we could muster,” said Gwen Robinson, president of the Cincinnati-Hamilton County Community Action Agency.

        Procter & Gamble chairman John Pepper, whose family foundation gave $100,000 to the initiative, called the program a success because it found jobs for nearly 2,000 teen-agers, “a large majority of (whom) wouldn't have had jobs.”

        Marcia Ma-Ree Battle, vice president of the English Woods Civic Association Resident Community Council, doesn't see it that way.

        “They lied to us,” she said.

        “They made unrealistic promises they could not meet, and now the children are suffering.

        “They said they'd have these jobs, and the summer's almost over.” Her residents' council had positions for 11 children, but until this week had filled only four. Another three applications came through this week, she said.

        Councilman Phil Heimlich and County Commissioner John Dowlin have asked the agencies involved in the initiatives for an accounting of the program.

WHERE THE JOBS ARE

These groups have accounted for 1,935 summer jobs for Cincinnati youth    Urban League/Community Action Agency: 990    Youth Works/Youth Employment: Services 312    Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing: Authority 63    Cincinnati Recreation Commission: 304    Freedom Schools: 36    ArtWorks: 178    Work Resource Center: 40    Art Links: 12    Source: Cincinnati Youth Collaborative.

WHERE THE MONEY CAME FROM

Hamilton County Jobs and Family Services: $1,400,000    City of Cincinnati: $300,000    Private Donations: $1,208,018    Total Funds Available: $2,908,018    Source: Cincinnati Youth Collaborative.

        If not for the riots, the lack of summer jobs for youths might have been much worse. Three previous jobs programs had lost funding for more than 1,000 subsidized summer jobs that had existed last year.

        By April, no new funding had been found, said John Bryant, retired head of the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative who helped organize the summer jobs initiative.

        First, the federal Job Training Partnership Act, which had funded about 900 summer jobs through the Citizens Committee on Youth, was replaced by a program stressing year- round employment, but its money hadn't been replaced.

        Second, Ohio's “Earn and Learn” program, providing 240 jobs, also disappeared. Third, the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce's Youth Employment Services program was also terminated.

        The riots focused attention on the needs of the city's youth. Three organizations — the Urban League, the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative and the Community Action Agency — were able to raise $2.9 million for this summer.

        That includes $1.4 million Hamilton County provided from unspent Temporary Assistance to Needy Families funds, which had been earmarked for welfare-to-work programs.

        The city pledged $300,000, and corporations and foundations also contributed hundreds of thousands.

        But the program's start in late April meant problems in finding jobs for younger teen-agers. There were jobs in the private sector for those 16 and older, at Paramount's Kings Island and other sites, but 90 percent of 1,700 applicants the Urban League handled were 14- and 15-year-olds, said the Urban League's Marsha Watts.

        “Those are the ones who showed the greatest need to be off the street,” she said.

        The contracts required to place those teen-agers in jobs through the county's Human Services Department took longer to complete than expected.

        And there wasn't time to train the teen-agers for work. Organizers realize they need to put more effort in job-readiness training for teen-agers taking their first jobs, Ms. Watts said.

        “Kids are walking in the front door and saying, "I don't like it here,' and they walk out.”

        Mr. Pepper said the effort needs to start earlier next year — for raising money, finding local jobs and recruiting teen-agers in city schools.

        Money might be the biggest challenge. The county's Temporary Assistance to Needy Families funds won't be available next year. And organizers say they can't continue to depend on corporations and private foundations to fund such a large share of the program's costs.

        When asked how the programs would be funded next summer, Mr. Heimlich, a critic of the programs, responded, “I won't be on council next year,” because of term limits.

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