Employment Partnerships

Beam Center employs youth in unique programs that we call “enterprises.” We have designed these enterprises to reflect the lived experiences of our youth participants and to prepare them for interest-based academic and career experiences.

In each enterprise, youth are paid to develop their technical and professional skills and are trained to design, create, and deliver some of our public-facing programming and art offerings. Expand the sections below to read more about each of our enterprises and to hear from our youth employees.

Project Leaders

Beam’s Project Leader Enterprise is a cooperative program managed by Beam Center full-time staff and young people from our community.

Project Leaders provides contracted STEAM enrichment programming to schools and community-based organizations in a variety of settings, including afterschool programs, street fairs, festivals, and day camps. Project Leaders are graduates of our Apprenticeship program who act as peer-to-peer mentors to those completing the Apprenticeship. Project Leaders develop annual project themes, brainstorm and prototype projects, develop materials lists and lesson plans, and facilitate projects for younger students.

Recent Projects + Themes

Project Production

The Project Production Enterprise manages the selection, collaborative development, and fabrication of Beam Center’s Big Projects, a collection of spectacular community-built public artworks.

Youth working in this enterprise are called Fellows and are trained in the fundamentals of prototyping, fabrication, and installation. Working collaboratively across Beam, the Project Production team regularly shares its expertise with our Apprenticeship and School Partnerships. In addition to its work within Beam, the Project Production team offers its services and expertise to artists with existing public commissions in need of fabrication support.

Externships

Beam’s Externship Enterprise places graduating Apprentices and other Beam-connected youth in work experiences at youth-centered creative and technical organizations and businesses that share Beam’s approach to learning-based employment.

Managed by our Youth Employment department, this enterprise identifies potential internship placements at sites that share Beam’s approach to learning-based employment and then matches Beam youth according to their interests and best fit. Prior to sending youth out on their Externships, Beam prepares worksites by sharing practices that create welcoming and responsive experiences for young people and enable reciprocal and transferable learning for both youth and the employer. Many Externship placements are supported by funding from the Department of Youth and Community Development’s (DYCD) Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP).

If you’d like to sign-up as a worksite and host Beam youth, complete this form.

Recent Externship placements include:

  • Big Reuse

  • Brooklyn Children’s Museum

  • Brooklyn College Haitian Studies

  • Building Beats

  • CAMBA

  • City Growers

  • Coditivity

  • Collective fare

  • Cysana

  • FDA Market

  • Flying Leap Production

  • IHSHS

  • IHSPH

  • IKEA

  • Kids in the game

  • Lamont Doherty

  • MarkerState

  • NPS

  • NYEdge

  • NY Presbiterian Hospital

  • QWANQWA

  • Reelworks

  • Reti Center

  • Secret Riso

  • Shahana Hanif

  • Shandaken Projects

  • Shapeshifter Lab

  • South Street Seaport Museum

  • SteamChamps

  • Teknikio

  • The Point CDC

  • Textile Arts Center

  • World Explorers NYC

  • United for Social Change

Beam Camp City

As Beam’s summer day camp on Governors Island, Beam Camp City also serves as a youth employment program. Working alongside our adult staff, youth who have completed the Apprenticeship or other enterprise placements are paid to facilitate project-making and the Beam Camp City experience for campers over the course of six weeks. Many youth staff roles at Beam Camp City are supported by funding from the Department of Youth and Community Development’s (DYCD) Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP).

Learn more about Beam Camp City and how to get involved.

Beam Camp

As Beam’s flagship program, Beam Camp provides young people with a summer full of creativity, collaboration, and fun. Each session at Beam Camp focuses on skill-building, collaborative challenge, responsibility, and mentorship while retaining a culture of community, exploration, and supported risk-taking. In addition to the youth who attend as campers, Beam Camp employs youth as Staff and Project Assistants. As staff, these young people help shape the camp experience and teach campers skills.

Learn more about Beam Camp and how to get involved.

  • Beam Camp Fellow chiseling a log in a wood shop

    —Devon, Fellow + member of the Beam Camp City Documentation Team, Summer 2022

    Coming to work with Beam Center, I learned skills in metal working…like metal bending, cutting, and even welding. My favorite experience with Beam - other than meeting all of the amazing people that work there - would have to be working on [the Documentation Team at Beam Camp City] on Governors Island. As someone who is getting back into photography and trying to get better at it…I have taken so many beautiful images and can see myself getting better every single day.

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