SWOP

05/04/2026

Exciting news! For the summer of 2026 the SWOP board is paying Cultures, Humanities, and Arts on the Iron Range (CHAIR) to coordinate a summer youth program similar to past SWOP programs. They are calling the program POWERS (Partners Offering Work Experience and Responsibility for Students). It will have similar key components to SWOP, but they are making their own adaptations as well. It will be offered at CHAIR in Virginia. There will be more information in the comments below. An application can be found at https://forms.gle/QAKVhvYgNuz1r3BT8. For more info, contact [email protected]. We are excited to see the legacy of SWOP continue and hope that the program can again be offered in other communities in the future!

02/17/2026

Exciting news for SWOP! There will be a youth program this summer! We finally found a partner to start offering the program again. CHAIR (Cultures, Humanities, and Arts on the Iron Range, formerly the Lyric Center for the Arts) on Chestnut St in Virginia will be hosting and operating the program. Stay tuned for more information!

04/30/2025

Help us make this summer program available to our youth again! Our small board doesn't have the capacity to keep the program going by ourselves, so we've been looking for a capable partner organization. This is our last push to see if anyone can help us out. If you have any ideas about a potential partner organization, please contact us! This is such a valuable program for both our youth and our communities!

The Summer Work Outreach Program (SWOP) began as a grassroots effort to help our community’s youth, and its board is again relying on those local roots and reaching out to connect with anyone in the community who can help bring it back to life. SWOP launched in the