Recession 2009 bites into teen spending

Warwick - Teenagers tend to be elastic in their habits and attitudes, so we don’t hear much gripe from them about the stresses of the recession. Even so, while it’s true that some aren’t feeling it (and others don’t even know what “recession” means), most are finding that jobs are scarce and colleges tightfisted, their families aren’t going on vacation this year, and they can’t afford to go to the movies or drive to the beach. But they say it with a cigarette dangling from fingers - for many, tobacco has made it onto the list of bare necessities - or they say it with a shrug and a smile, for the best things in summer are cheap and decidedly retro: hanging out in parking lots, pick-up soccer, swimming, jamming with the band, or saving up for a beer at the end of a long, slow, hot recession day. The following is a sampling of what teens and barely-20-somethings on the street have to say about Recession 2009. Hit by fall-off in financial aid Jimmy Rose, 18, is a trumpet player who would have liked to go to the Boston Conservatory, which trains exceptional young performing artists. He got in, but they couldn’t offer financial aid “because more people are applying for it,” says Rose, who works at Café a la Mode. Instead, he’ll be going to Ithaca College, which gave him $34,000 a year, so he has to pay only $12,000 a year. Local music venues have closed as well, to his disappointment. “There’s a place in Middletown, a blues club, where I used to like to go.” The future has been outsourced Tom Cronin, 20, doesn’t think the recession has affected him because “I’d have a minimum wage job either way.” A “computer guy” who’s working at a pizzeria in Warwick for the summer before returning to SUNY Rockland, Cronin thinks “there’s very little opportunity for a young person, even with computer skills, to make an impact. If I’d done this 10 years ago, I might have had a good future, but now most jobs in this industry are outsourced to India.” Cronin takes a turn around the lot on his skateboard. He doesn’t have a car. “It affects my parents - we buy a lot of bulk stuff. I don’t remember using all the refrigerators in the house. A lot of frozen stuff, a lot of meat.” Cronin asks Trevor Norrow, “Actually, can I get a dollar?” Everyone has to pitch in Trevor Norrow, 19, works at Bravo Pizza three days a week. He’s going to try to find a full-time job after the summer. Right now, with all the kids out of school and looking for jobs, work is tough to come by. “I owe a lot of money right now, for my car and stuff. My mom got it for me for my birthday, and I got in an accident. My mom paid, and I’m paying her back.” Norrow wants to go into movie editing and thinks he’ll go to college in Michigan, where his mother set up a college fund for him. Both his mom and his mom’s boyfriend are being laid off in mid-August, he says. They work for his uncle, who owns a lighting design business that sets up new technology at promotional events for companies like SONY. Business is slow. “I’m living with them, so I’ll have to help out more,” says Trevor. No problem Joe Crawford, 17, feels the recession “not at all,” since he’s got a job working at a day camp. He goes to Jersey to gas up “so it’s mad cheap.” A student at Warwick Valley High School, he’d like to be an engineer. “I’ll probably go into the Army and then go to college. And I’d rather get more advanced knowledge of engineering,” which he believes the Army offers. Call of community college Justin Waider, 20, used to go to SUNY Cortland, but he switched to SUNY Orange because the four-year school was too expensive. “My parents could have helped me, but I wanted to pay myself, in case I messed up. I liked it up there (at Cortland), but I’m easygoing, so everywhere is fine by me.” While Cortland costs $15,000 a year, including room and board, SUNY Orange is only $1,500 a semester, says Waider, who wants to be a special ed teacher. He worked at Walmart for about a year, until he was laid off. “Gas prices - that hurts me. Gas is horrible. That’s all I buy: gas and cigarettes. I used to pay $30 to fill my tank. Now I pay $10, whatever I have in my pocket. And before, if people needed rides, I’d definitely help them. Now I usually park my car and walk.” There’s always outdoor fun Ashley Grattin, 18, is headed to SUNY Morrisville in the fall and is working at Bravo Pizza for the summer. She hopes to transfer after two years from a public to a private school. She likes Rutgers, “if I can get scholarships.” As for the summer, “things aren’t as easy to do. To go to the movies, everyone you’re out with has to have money,” so more often “we just sit around in parking lots and talk. I’m definitely outside more, hiking and stuff,” says Grattin, who just graduated from Warwick and wants to major in environmental science. “I’m not a material person. I don’t think we need to be spending our money on stupid things.” But, she adds, “I appreciate a free sample.” Summer jobs hard to come by Amanda Wells, 17, dropped out of Baker High School in Tuxedo in January. “It was a mix of school’s not for me, and they didn’t have the programs for kids who need one-on-one.” But getting a job hasn’t been easy. “I applied to 35 jobs and heard back from one of them. I got it - a job cleaning bathrooms at the Renaissance Fair. It wasn’t one I wanted.” But Wells was laid off from even that one, because “no one wants to go to a Renaissance Fair and pay 35 or 40 bucks.” “I miss driving around,” she says. “We can’t even go to the beach or drive to the city.” If not for the recession, “we’d probably be going out more. We’d probably go to Six Flags once or twice.” Wells dreamed of going to SUNY Purchase for photography; now she’s planning on getting an EMT certificate and “working very hard to make a living.” Everybody’s just hanging For Cassie Wagstaff, 18, “recession” brings to mind other people’s problems. Washingtonville, her brother’s school, recently cut back on sports, so her brother had to transfer to Burke, a private school that costs $6,000 a year, to play sports. A friend got into Parsons School of Design in New York City but can’t afford to go. Wagstaff herself applied to 15 jobs, and got one call back from a Starbucks, but she thinks that was only because she knew the manager. As a barista she’s seen a dramatic decrease in traffic from when she first started, “because nobody can afford a $4 latte.” In response, Starbucks started cutting everyone’s hours. “You’d go two weeks without working one day.” To pay for SUNY Purchase, where she’s headed in the fall, “my parents are helping me and I’m taking out loans. It’s going to take a long time to pay them back.” Wagstaff’s biggest expenses right now are gas, food and cigarettes. I can’t even go to the movies. Have to save it for college.” Instead, “we just sit at somebody’s house.” But that has its upside, too: “You see more people in town. You see the college kids because everyone’s hanging around.” A recession by any other name Connor Crone, 16, says “I don’t even know what a recession is.” Nevertheless, he’s seeing it. A student at Warwick Valley High School, Crone plays drums in a band and is working at Village Music in Warwick. People aren’t buying music lessons like they normally do in the summer, he says. Crone and his band Avenue play gigs at venues like Tuscan Café and Doc Fry Community Center, and they get paid by the number of people who show up. “Less people are showing up. Last gig we made $80 between four of us. But I’d do it for free.” His dad, also a musician, teaches music in the Monroe-Woodbury school system. One day, Crone wants to open his own music store. “I don’t know if I want it to be a little quaint one like Village Music or a big one. I guess I’d have to study business.” No zing in her handspring Christina Caffazo, 17, who just graduated from S.S. Seward in Florida, plans to go to SUNY Orange in the fall to study elementary education. “I was going to go away, but I wasn’t totally ready to go off - it wasn’t all money.” As a cheerleader last year, it was hard for Caffazo to work during cheer season, and she couldn’t afford the gym. “I wasn’t able to go to Sports, Fitness and Fun and get my back handspring. I almost had it but between my wrists and the money issue, I just couldn’t go anymore. When I go away to college and try out for college cheerleading, I’ll definitely need a back handspring. Me not having that definitely hurts.” This summer, she’s working two jobs, at Dunkin Donuts and at Camp Warwick, just like last summer. “My parents give me money for stuff, but I still have my bills that I have to pay, that I should have to pay.” Last summer, she worked from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. This summer, “there’s more people working. They’re not putting me on the schedule as much. It’s relaxing - I actually get to enjoy my senior summer.” Family vacation scrapped Justin Velez, 17, is hanging out this summer for the first time ever. “My family’s not going on vacation. Usually, we go to the Jersey shore. I love going down to the shore. I’m used to doing something every year.” Justin, who just graduated from S.S. Seward in Florida, is working with kids at a day camp, “putting checks away” for the fall, when he’s going to Corning Community College to study psychology. He and friend Eddie Mythen are hanging out on Mythen’s porch after work on a weekday afternoon. Avoiding debt build-up Eddie Mythen, 18, wants to be a cop like his dad, so he’s going to Dominican College in Rockland in the fall to study criminal justice. This summer, he’s working maintenance and “saving all my money up for college. My parents are helping me pay. We got a lot of financial aid. Basically, I’m trying not to build up debt.” His biggest expense is gas to go visit his girlfriend in another town, and then food. Does he get bored, now that bowling and movies are out? “We’re used to it. In a small town like this, there’s not really much to do anyway. Horseshoes, swimming, pick-up soccer - that’s more fun for us than going to the movies anyway.”