And they did!!  Well, Erik Ariel Torres, from ABCD University High School  said there were at least 60 of them.

“There’s a real crisis with the levels of funding,” said Lew Finfer, an organizer for the Youth Jobs Coalition. “About 1,200 jobs are at stake.” in the Boston Herald on Wednsday the 25. ” Boston’s Thomas M. Menino and 20 other mayors also have signed a letter urging Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo to restore funding for the program.

And on the next day the State House News Service reported in the Boston Herald reported  “It put us in better shape than we were last year coming out of the House,” Lew Finfer, director of the Massachusetts Communities Action Network, told the News Service. Advocates say 1,200 youth jobs would be lost without funding restorations. Finfer said they’re thankful for lawmakers’ support for $8.6 million in the final House budget, but he added that 200 youth jobs are still in danger of being lost.”

But the kids aren’t done yet and will be up again in a couple of months says  Darius Brooks, from ABCD University High School.

Finfer said advocates will also press for a supplemental budget in order to get funds flowing before July 1, when the state budget goes into effect, so programs know how many youth to hire.

“We feel this is a fundamental part of our life,” said Daiquan Bradford, an 18-year-old youth organizer who works with the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation’s “Youth Force,” a youth leadership initiative. “We’re building skills that will be with us for the rest of our lives.”