Long before there was Job.com, there was Sandy Jacoby at Rye Youth Council Employment Service.

 

By Robin Jovanovich

Long before there was Job.com, there was Sandy Jacoby at Rye Youth Council Employment Service. While her first-floor office at Rye High School is far from spacious, lots of good things have happened in that room over the last 15 years.

Her door, right across from the school library, has always been open to students looking for weekend, after-school, and summer jobs — even though the noise level in the hallway often reaches movieplex trailer proportions.

“I didn’t want to have a student think they’d missed me,” she said.

But students will miss her starting in the fall. Jacoby is hanging up her hat. “The computer system is backed up and we now have ten volunteers ready to help match students with jobs, so I am going to be able to play more bridge and tennis and go to the city more often with my husband. We’re expecting our second grandchild and that means a trip to Washington, D.C. And my mother’s 100th birthday is coming up,” she said with her characteristic enthusiasm.
It’s that enthusiasm that has made her job look easy.

On the board of the Rye Youth Council for many years, Jacoby saw just how many kids needed jobs. “You couldn’t be both a staff member and a board member, so I got off the board to help in a more direct way. We started out with job descriptions on index cards,” she recalled with a laugh. “After that we had a borrowed computer, even a borrowed answering machine. This operation runs on a shoestring budget.”

Jacoby has high praise for Abbie Morrison, who has taken care of all the office’s computer needs, including training the volunteers, and former RHS Principal Jim Rooney for finding an office.

When you ask Sandy about the thousands of babysitting, yard cleanup, moving, driving, pet care, retail helper jobs she’s found, she beams. “I’m really proud that I was able to coordinate with the Guidance Office and were are able to pay honors students — from Rye Country Day, too — who tutor.”

Asked to name one of the student success stories, she is quick to reply: Holly Secon. “She’s the poster child for Rye Youth Employment. She’s worked at an architect’s office, Framing Corner, and when she came back from college in May, she found a job to fill in the time before her summer job started!”

While students will no longer be able to Ask Mrs. Jacoby and have their employment dreams come true, she said she would still volunteer as a floater. Meanwhile, she hasn’t hung up all her hats. She’s a learning disability specialist with an active practice, and she’s got a great track record with students who need college essay and SAT prep.

During our interview, we learned that Sandy Jacoby once taught at the same girls’ school the publisher attended and is an alum of the same college, so expect to see her writing for The Rye Record before long.