The transition into summer never ceases to amaze me. There’s this familiar, palpable mix of hope and anticipation in the air. Parents and children alike have high expectations and are all eager to be free from homework, surprise presentations and tests. For many of us, summer is a time to look forward to each year. The sun’s out, it’s warm, and we have more time to do fun activities and see our friends.

When you think about it, our summers are often chalk full of things to do. Keeping the kids occupied usually means taking advantage of the longer days and warmer weather by going to pools, the movies, stores, a zoo or parks. Other times, we opt to send our kids to fun and educational camps where they can make new friends and go on field trips.

The Y is a place that provides many of those same experiences for local kids. Pools, events, Summer Day Camp, swimming lessons… the list of summer activities we have goes on and on. With all of this, it’s no shock there’s something else that goes hand in hand with summer – LOTS of summer jobs. We need to have staff to maintain the high-quality pools, events, camps and childcare you’ve come to know and love!

We all know how unprecedented the past year has been, and our staffing needs are no exception. Like many other businesses and organizations, we’re struggling like never before to staff up for the summer. This is why we have decided to offer a $100 credit for employee referrals in the month of May.

As you probably know, we’re a nonprofit. It may seem counterintuitive for an organization like ours to offer referral money, but the truth is that we can’t stomach the thought of spending thousands and thousands of dollars to individually advertise hundreds of open positions on job boards like Indeed, Glassdoor or ZipRecruiter. We recognize this is a pay-to-play arena, but if we’re going to spend money on staff recruitment, we’d prefer that money goes to you.

So if you know someone (or some people) who’d be a great fit for the Y and you’d like an extra $100 added to your account, we encourage you to send them our way. I should note a few stipulations are in place, and I’ve included them below.

This isn’t the most interesting section I’ve ever written, but it’s still important.

• The $100 credit will be paid out once the referred staff member has been employed for 30 days.
• Unfortunately, you can’t refer yourself.
• You’ll need to fill out this form prior to the employee’s start date if you want credit (literally and figuratively).
• The referral program ends May 31, 2021
• All credits need to be used by October 31, 2021.

The end of this pandemic is in sight, and after the year we’ve had, we all deserve a great summer! We appreciate you staying with us and helping us better serve our community. To see our open jobs and learn about our referral program, visit ymcaokc.org/YApply