The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing limits on public programs and difficult budget decisions for cities. It’sthe kind of environment that has led other cities, like, New York, to take steps to cancel summer youth employment programs.

Baltimore is facing similar fiscal challenges, but despite these struggles and social distancing that has closed many workplaces, the city’s YouthWorks program will return in 2020 starting on July 13, and it’s going virtual, Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young said on Wednesday.

“Now more than in years past it is critical we offer the program in some form this summer,” Young said at a City Hall news conference. “Our communities have come to see the YouthWorks experience as a right of passage for our young people who have earned it. We are responding despite the challenges the coronavirus has presented.”

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