A summer job can change how a teenager sees themselves.
Detroit’s Summer Arts Employment Training (SAET) program is betting on that truth — and expanding in a way that puts paid work, creative training, and real career skills in reach for more young people across the city.
Up to 200 Detroit high school students ages 14 to 17 will be placed in paid summer arts jobs through SAET, a program offering hands-on training and work experience across 10 partner locations.
The online application period opened March 13.
SAET is led by Heritage Works in partnership with Detroit Excellence in Youth Arts (DEYA), Grow Detroit’s Young Talent (GDYT), and a citywide network of arts organizations working in dance, visual arts, theater production, youth-led arts education, and arts activism. Alongside the creative work, participants will also build workplace skills centered on teamwork, communication, entrepreneurism, and project management.
“Detroit’s youth have tremendous creative talent and potential,” said Nafeesah Symonette, executive director of DEYA. “Through the leadership of Heritage Works and our community arts partners, we are connecting young people with opportunities to gain meaningful work experience while developing their artistic skills.”
For many Detroit families, summer employment comes with a familiar tension: teens need income, structure, and safety, and they also need spaces that affirm who they are and what they can become. Programs rooted in the arts often deliver both, especially when the training is tied to paid work experience that treats talent as something worth investing in right now, not later.
SAET’s partner sites span disciplines and neighborhoods, giving students multiple ways to learn, create, perform, and lead. Arts partners include Artlab J, Detroit City Dance, Detroit-Windsor Dance Academy, Jit Masters, Live Coal, LSODance, Mint Artists Guild, Motor City Street Dance Academy, Que Blackout Youth Theater, and W.I.S.E. Partnership.
“Talent is abundant, but access isn’t,” said AJ Lockett, founder of Que Blackout Youth Theater, which teaches technical theater and production. “SAET allows us to provide access to those talented youth in the city who often are left out by allowing them to have a much-needed summer job, while allowing them to follow their passions and learn real job skills through the arts.”
Funding for SAET comes through a State of Michigan MiLEAP out-of-school time grant and the Grow Detroit’s Young Talent (GDYT) program, which supports paid summer employment opportunities for Detroit youth. SAET programming will run from late June through mid-August.
“The arts are the blueprint for how we communicate, problem-solve, and lead, and that translates directly into careers,” said Barbara Kellom, executive director of W.I.S.E. Partnership. “SAET is proof that what lives in these young people has value, and that creativity can translate into employment.”
Creative work already drives the city’s identity, from neighborhood dance culture to youth-driven storytelling, visual art, theater, and activism that moves people to action. A paid program that treats arts training as workforce development sends a clear message to young Detroiters: creativity belongs on a résumé, and it deserves a paycheck.
Students interested in SAET will need to complete a two-part application process, and both steps should be done at the same time.
First, applicants must apply to GDYT and meet GDYT eligibility requirements, including being a Detroit resident and being currently enrolled in high school or recently graduated. Students must be accepted into GDYT. Summer employment information and application access is available through GDYT at https://gdyt.org.
Second, students must apply directly to SAET by completing the SAET Interest Form at https://tinyurl.com/summerartjobs. Participation requires acceptance into SAET and selection by one of the program’s partner sites.
Selected applicants may be invited to an audition or interview, held either in person or virtually.
Organizers said interest forms will be reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis until positions are filled, meaning early action can make the difference for students hoping to secure a spot.
For Detroit teens deciding what to do with their summer, SAET offers something rare: paid work that develops craft, confidence, and job-ready skills at the same time. Application access is now open, and the city’s young artists are being called to bring their full selves to the work.
