Tyla becomes an author and entrepreneur after her summer job
17-year-old Tyla Sullivan completed a summer job with Youth Opportunities Unlimited at Bumper Crop Farm in 2020. She was fascinated by the process of selling the produce and using the money to buy more seeds for the next season. Tyla shared about her experience. “I really liked that it was something different for me. And I like that I got the opportunity to do it.”
Tyla is a multi-talented student. She runs track at Cleveland Heights High School on top of her traditional school responsibilities. After a hard year at school, her mother Latrice wanted to give her a gift she could be proud of. Latrice comments, “I wanted to get her back focused on the right path, so I decided to gift her with her own self-publishing company. I bought some copyrights and quite a bit of images. I was worried about her keeping her focus because I remember how I was at her age.”
After a summer job experience at Y.O.U., each participant is assigned a case manager who provides long term mentorship and support by checking in at least once a month for an entire year. During those check-ins they will discuss participants goals and aspirations and any challenges they might be facing. Tyla’s case manager, Maria, learned about her new project during one of these sessions.
Mother and daughter decided together to make content for children. It ranges from handwriting and multiplication workbooks to a line of coloring books. Through this process, Latrice is growing in more than just a rededication to school and an entrepreneurial practice. “[Tyla] decided she wanted to shed light on representation for children of color because there's just not a lot of African American characters. When we looked at the coloring books out there, we saw that there was a need.”
Tyla says, “People my age aren't really doing things like this. It's a bit challenging putting out new ideas and having to be really creative. I like the idea of what I'm doing now: helping kids. It brings out my communication skills while I’m trying to tell people about the books around my school.”
Latrice has noticed that “it's bringing us closer together again. It's just great to build something with her and to see her flourish.” So far the Sullivans have created six books together.
In 2017, Case Western Reserve University evaluated the impacts of a summer job on Y.O.U. participants. Youth who had a summer job with Y.O.U. had better school attendance, high graduation rates, fewer juvenile delinquency filings and lower adult incarceration rates than those who didn’t have a summer job. The benefits of a summer job extend well beyond the wages youth earn.