If you are a young person in Pueblo, a high schooler or even a college student who is looking for a summer job, the city wants to talk with you. It has openings for as many as 300 temporary workers.
“We offer so many different programs,” says Mike Sexton, Assistant Director for Pueblo Parks and Recreation. Job openings exist for students as young as fifteen, older students, including college-aged, as well as jobs for people who may even be retired and are looking for something to keep them busy.
There are jobs for people who already have skills in a particular area or for those who are willing to be trained for a specific job. In fact, for some positions, said Sexton, training classes have already begun. One of these positions where training has already begun, he said, is lifeguard. For this particular job, the city allows fifteen-year-olds to apply. “We need about 80 lifeguards,” Sexton said.
Younger workers, he said, are often slotted for the City Park’s quaint rides, rides that include a tiny roller coaster and the merry-go-round, a staple for generations of Puebloans.
Pueblo’s parks, which have traditionally been compared to any in the state for their cleanliness and sheer beauty, also depend on workers to keep them in tip-top shape. “Our biggest hurdle,” Sexton said, “is for maintenance (workers) and for employees who drive city vehicles.” For those who do drive city vehicles, everything from cars and trucks to the industrial mowers used across the 80 acres of park lands, drug testing is a requirement. “A lot of people don’t want to (be tested).”
Jobs the city needs to fill include food concession positions, tennis, pickleball and youth and adult sports. Workers can also be assigned to locations that make their commute easier. Jobs are spread across the city and are in positions that are both inside and out. Some of the jobs are available in the various city recreation centers, too, including the El Centro del Quinto Sol Recreation Center, Pueblo Ice Arena and the city’s two golf courses, Walking Stick and Elmwood.
Sexton, an Iowa native by way of Kansas where he attended college, said summer jobs are a great way to both earn pocket money and a learn a good work ethic. In fact, he said, “All three of my adult children worked summer jobs in parks and recreation.”
For a fifteen-year-old just needing spending money or a college student needing money for rent or tuition, a summer parks and recreation job is not a bad way to earn it. While some will get minimum wage, other workers with experience and, perhaps, who have worked previous summers, the pay rises accordingly. “They also get PERA (state retirement) which they can keep forever,” Sexton said. For some jobs and some workers, “you can make as much as $20,000.” Those in that particular bracket are “those who stick around” and work part-time through the winter months. “You come and work hard,” he said, “we’ll try and reward you.”
Not all of the jobs are for the faint of heart, he said. Some will require a bit of ‘sweat equity.’ Among those include gardening positions that require a lot of kneeling and bending to make sure the city’s flower beds, which feature more than “15,000 flowers planted annually,” are maintained at blue-ribbon levels.
If you are interested in working Pueblo’s pickle ball or tennis courts or umpiring youth or adult softball or supervising at the city’s dog park, skatepark or its pro/am Disk Golf Course at City Park, Sexton urges you to visit the city’s Parks and Recreation website Pueblo.us/parks.
