Baltimore YouthWorks teens pack summer lunches, gain job experience
At Martin’s Caterers, YouthWorks teens packed lunches for thousands of Baltimore children while building paid job skills. The city says the program has run for more than 50 years.
YouthWorks participants spent part of their summer at Martin’s Caterers in Baltimore packing lunches for thousands of children across the city, turning a kitchen job into both paid work and a supply line for the Summer Food Service Program.
Sixteen-year-old Brooke Tillett said she liked the environment and the people, and that the work felt meaningful because she was helping her community. Maryland Secretary of Labor Portia Wu was there as well, underscoring the role summer jobs can play in building experience that carries beyond July.
Baltimore’s Mayor’s Office of Employment Development says YouthWorks helps thousands of young people ages 14 to 21 find summer jobs with businesses, nonprofits and government offices. Mac Garvin, who leads the office, said the city has worked with Martin’s Caterers for more than two decades and that the partnership has given hundreds of young people summer work experience.
The city has used YouthWorks as a long-running workforce pipeline for more than 50 years. When Baltimore marked the program’s 50th year in 2023, officials said more than 7,700 YouthWorkers were expected and 7,890 jobs were offered. The current summer session runs from June 29 through July 31, keeping teens attached to paid work during the school break and exposing them to workplace habits that employers often look for: attendance, speed, communication and teamwork.
The lunch-packing work also connects to a larger food-access system. Baltimore’s Summer Food Service Program provides free meals and snacks to children in low-income areas during the summer, when school is out, and the city’s 2026 application says the program is scheduled to operate from June 22 through August 28, pending possible changes to the Baltimore City Schools calendar. That makes the YouthWorks shifts at Martin’s Caterers part of a citywide effort that is about more than summer activity; it is about keeping children fed and teens employed at the same time.
Mayor Brandon Scott’s 2026 summer youth engagement strategy, called In the Mix in ’26, adds another layer to that approach. Announced May 13, the plan is the fourth straight year the city has paired summer safety, recreation and youth programming. For Baltimore, YouthWorks is one of the few programs that can claim both sides of the equation: immediate paychecks for teens and a direct service benefit for families who rely on summer meals.
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