School Rehabilitation and Landscaping – Ponce PR

Description

Youth employed by the National Youth Administration carried out landscaping work for Ponce’s public schools.

Through its student work program, the National Youth Administration provided work opportunities and helped Puerto Rican youth graduate high school and college. “By the spring of 1935 though, 20 percent of the nation’s twenty-two million youngsters remained out of school and either on relief or wandering the country looking for work. In 1937, the President stated: ‘I have determined, that we shall do something for the nation’s unemployed Youth…’ Beneficiaries would be all male and female youths aged 16 to 25 not regularly attending school.”

Excerpt from a Speech by Aubrey W. Williams, Executive  Director of the National Youth Administration on September 23, 1937: “(…) a total of 440,866 students in the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico were given work on NYA projects in high schools, colleges, and graduate schools last year. In 22,675 secondary schools, there were 295,088 students earning an average wage of $4.88 a month; there were 140,362 undergraduate college students in 1,665 colleges earning an average wage of $12.66; and there were 5,416 graduate students in 188 graduate schools earning an average wage of $23.33 a month.”