The Bank of America Charitable Foundation recently announced that five Chicago area high school students have been selected to take part in the 2012 Student Leaders program, which awards a total of 225 high school juniors and seniors from around the country with paid eight-week summer internships at local nonprofit organizations. Among the students selected were Diana Lozano, a Chicago resident and recent graduate of Jones College Prep and Jose Aburto, a Cicero resident and recent graduate of J. Sterling Morton East High School. Lozano will intern at YMCA of Metro Chicago, while Aburto will intern at the Boys and Girls Club of Chicago.

The program is part of Bank of America’s ongoing philanthropic commitment to providing community-minded students with access and exposure to critical resources that will bolster their work and life skills while also benefiting the community. The student awardees will also travel to Washington, DC to take part in a national Student Leadership Summit this July. Despite gains in the overall job market, one out of every four job seekers between the ages of 16 and 19 is still unable to find employment. In Illinois, 22.6 percent of youth between the ages of 16 and 19 were unemployed last summer and 45.7 percent were unable to get the summer work they desired, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).