Paid Summer Internships Connect Ventura Teens to Career Building Opportunities
VENTURA — Bank of America (on June 26) announced two high school rising seniors from Ventura County have been selected as Student Leaders®(#BofAStudentLeaders), where they will participate in an eight-week paid summer internship. The students will be assigned roles with local nonprofit Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County, learning about local community needs while developing leadership and workplace skills and earning competitive wages. They will also receive financial education coaching from Bank of America’s Better Money Habits curriculum.
With changing economic environments and Ventura County’s 2024 and 2025 GDP expected to be markedly higher than in 2023, young people need access to workforce experience and career skills-building opportunities. The private sector can play a role to help better position young adults to be successful in today’s workforce. Along with the Student Leaders program, Bank of America is connecting local high school students to on-the-job and real-life skills training as part of the paid internship program with UC Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. This year alone, the company is connecting more than 3,400 teens and young adults nationwide to a variety of jobs and internships.
“By providing career and leadership development opportunities for teens, we can help develop the next generation of skilled workforce that is essential to Ventura and Santa Barbara’s long-term economic growth,” said Midge Campbell-Thomas, president, Bank of America Ventura-Santa Barbara. “These students are truly exceptional, and the opportunity for them to work with a highly impactful local nonprofit like Habitat for Humanity along with financial education can collectively prepare them for future success.”
The class of 2024 Ventura-Santa Barbara Bank of America Student Leaders are:
Nicole Diche of Oxnard is a rising senior at Channel Islands High school. An exceptional leader, Nicole fosters a sense of community for her classmates in her roles as Associated Student Body President, President of the Mock Trial team and AP chemistry tutor. An immigrant to the U.S. from the Philippines at a young age, Nicole’s parents have encouraged her to take advantage of the opportunities that come her way. Nicole uses her leadership to help give back to the local community and wants to pursue a law career as a way to help others, having been further inspired by her recent internship with an all-female law firm specializing in immigration law.
James Miller. Courtesy photo.
James Miller of Oxnard is a rising senior at Westlake High School. A high-achieving student, James balances a rigorous course load as an AP scholar with a variety of extracurricular activities that give back to his school and local community, driven by his passion for social justice. James believes that pragmatic solutions come from open discussions and is a national award-winning speech and debate team member, and founder and president of the Westlake High School Speech and Debate Club. To further his work to ensure educational equity for the local community, James founded the Ventura County
Education Network (VCEN), working with the Oxnard School district to provide free educational resources and mentoring for elementary and middle school students in underserved communities across Ventura County.
Later this summer, the Student Leaders will travel to Washington D.C. for a week-long, all expenses paid, national leadership summit focused on the power of cross-sector collaboration and community advocacy. Student Leaders from across the nation will discuss the importance of civic engagement and meet with members of Congress.
The Student Leaders program annually recognizes 300 or more community-focused juniors and seniors from across the U.S. In Ventura-Santa Barbara since the program began in 2019, it has included 10 local teens.
Bank of America — Bank of America is one of the world’s leading financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 68 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 3,900 retail financial centers, approximately 15,000 ATMs and award-winning digital banking with approximately 56 million verified digital users. Bank of America is a global leader in wealth management, corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business households through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations across the United States, its territories and more than 35 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.