The first challenge to getting at-risk youth into summer jobs is waking them up.

Reggie Smith, associate director of YouthPlaces, said the goal of the Summer Community Service Project is to hire the young men who are at the most risk of trouble and teach them to get up to be at work at 8 a.m.

He said when the summer jobs program started in Beltzhoover and St. Clair Village in 2005, the foremen would have to rouse the workers from bed in the morning to get them to the job sites.

Now, he said, the young men who are part of the Summer Community Service Project all know they have to be at work on time.

"These guys, they cut lawns, they pave basketball courts and they clean up graffiti," Mr. Smith said. "They put it up there, they should take it down."

This summer, the program will be expanded substantially and have $350,000 in foundation funds to hire 400 youths ages 15 to 22 in 16 city neighborhoods and four other municipalities, Braddock, Rankin, Duquesne and McKeesport. Last year, the program served 10 communities and provided 262 jobs.

County Chief Executive Dan Onorato said there are at least 15 other communities where the county is hoping to run the program, including McKees Rocks, Clairton and Wilkinsburg.

A component of the program is that toward the end of the summer, after the work is done, the youths meet with members of work crews from other neighborhoods to build the sort of trust that will stop rivalries between neighborhoods.

The Summer Community Service Project is run in a collaboration of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, YouthPlaces, Voices Against Violence, Homewood-Brushton YMCA and One Hood.

Mr. Smith said the difference between the service project and the city's summer jobs program is that the city's jobs are for young people, mostly in high school, who need summer employment. His program targets youths who have dropped out of school and need intervention and basic life skills to be successful in the future.

Lori Schaller, executive director of YouthPlaces, said the five-week program is as much a training program as it is a work program. It includes a one-week orientation, one-on-one counseling sessions and one full day a week of training. The participants are paid $100 a week.

Mr. Smith said some participants re-enroll in school when the program is done. Others have moved on to training programs for skills such as carpentry.

This year the neighborhoods in Pittsburgh will be Addison Terrace, Bedford Dwellings, Beltzhoover, California-Kirkbride, Central North Side, East Hills, Garfield, Hazelwood, Homewood, Larimer, Lincoln, Manchester, Northview Heights, Oak Hill, Perry South and St. Clair Village.