So, back in 1996, the Olympics were in Atlanta, GA and there was this group called the Summer Games Employment Services Group of Atlanta that recruited young folk from all over the country to come down and work in Kiosks selling crap…
So, there were like 5 or so of us from my home town of Tripoli, IA and 74 total from Iowa and we headed down. Basically it was a disaster.. I don’t remember a whole lot of the details ’cause it was 10 years ago, but I was searching for my name in Google today and came across an article about it from 1996… I am quoted in it TWICE and I do not remember doing that at all!! Weird….
Iowans stranded at Games are on way home
74 youths lured by promises of jobs were turned away
July 21, 1996
By Dave Rasdal
Gazette staff writerJake Moore and his buddy Paul Schultz, recent graduates of Postville High School, gave up their last season of baseball this summer to pursue a dream — to work as vendors at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Instead, they found themselves playing board games in a Forsyth, Ga., middle school — 60 miles from the Atlanta — without the jobs, money and rooms they had been promised.
They were among 3,000 young people from around the nation, including 74 from Iowa, that were stiffed by Summer Games Employment Services Group of Atlanta.
“It’s a screwy deal,” Moore said in a telephone interview Saturday. “No one really knows what’s going on. We thought this was an opportunity of a lifetime, and now it’s this.”
By last night, the 74 Iowa young people and their four adult chaperones were bound for home on two Greyhound buses arranged for by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and his staff, working in cooperation with Gov. Terry Branstad.
The group is expected to arrive in Waterloo about 2 p.m. today.
Their temporary accommodations in Forsyth, Ga., were set up by the Red Cross. The grateful Iowans praised the town of 5,000 for its hospitality.
“This community has been great,” said Chris Neuendorf, 20, of Tripoli. “They’ve got 500 or 600 people staying here. They fed us breakfast. They said we can stay as long as we want.”
According to Georgia officials, Summer Games Employment Services was subcontracted by Event Management & Marketing Associates Inc. to hire students to work in 500 to 600 kiosks around Olympic venues.
It had planned to house the workers in rented schools. But the buildings filled quickly, and the company was told by the Atlanta Fire Department to move the young people out of the schools because of overcrowding and inadequate smoke detectors.
After a meeting Friday with the Georgia Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs, Event Management said it would pay each student $200 and bus them home.
But it was Branstad who guaranteed bus fare for the students, Grassley’s office said.
Grassley expressed sympathy for the disappointed Iowa students.
“I’m sorry to see this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity turn sour for the 74 young Iowans who anticipated working at the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta,” Grassley said.
“Unfortunately, this was not a golden Olympic experience for these very disappointed kids.”
So, since the students weren’t working at the Olympics on Saturday, did they watch the Games?
“Some of us have,” Neuendorf said. “Some of us don’t care to watch it for a while.”
