Draft Day for 300 Twin Cities students in Genesys Works program

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) - It's Draft Day for nearly 300 Twin Cities students involved in a non-profit called Genesys Works. After completing 8 weeks of business and IT training this summer, high schoolers are matched with top Minnesota corporations for a year-long internship.

Genesys Works enables disadvantaged high school students to break through barriers, get meaningful work experience and give them the tools they need to succeed as professionals.

It’s an exciting moment for these students to walk across the red carpet and join companies like 3M, Target, Medtronic, Cargill, Optum, Ecolab and Ameriprise.

"We put them to work building PCs. We put them in a help desk. They read our documents on how to help people with passwords. Some are building spreadsheets, some are building reports. There’s a variety of jobs that these young interns can do for us and it is very exciting," said Tammy Sachse, local command manager at 3M. “The students that we get are from Harding [High School, St. Paul] -- Harding is our neighbor. This is our neighborhood. This is important to us and important to 3M to help the people in the community.”

One Harding student just drafted to 3M told Fox 9 she’s “excited, nervous, everything in one.” Another student said she was “speechless.”

“I just want to thank the Genesys Works program for getting us so prepared,” she said. “8 weeks was intense, but we made it. Now it’s time for us to get paid for learning.”

If you are interested in learning more, all you have to do is check out GenesysWorks.org