When Marsha Armstrong Acheampong was called to Newark Mayor Ras Baraka's office three years ago, she had no idea why.

"I thought I had done something wrong," she said.

But what could that have been? She was interning at the city's Office of Prison Re-entry, not exactly the kind of position that would earn the mayor's wrath.

"I was nervous," said Acheampong, 35. "I had no idea what was going on. I was just an intern, and a college student."

The mayor got right to the point.

"He just looked at me and said, 'Here's what you're going to do.' "

This was in the early fall of 2015. A few weeks earlier, Baraka had been in Detroit, where he saw how that city ran a large and successful summer employment program.

"That was it," Acheampong said. "He wanted me to take our summer program and do the same thing."

No small task, especially for a person still in college, though it was a master's program in public administration.

"I never asked, 'Why me?' " she said. "He seemed so confident I could do it, so I just went ahead and did some research and got started."

Baraka spokeswoman Marjorie Harris said Acheampong "impressed everyone with her intelligence, diligence and commitment and even pursued and received her MPA from Rutgers while working full-time."

Acheampong came to Baraka's attention for all that, and the result is a Youth Employment Program that has grown from 1,000 students to 3,000 this summer.

"The mayor has a talent for allowing you to step into a space you think is too big for you, but he knows you can handle it," Acheampong said.

MORE: Recent Mark Di Ionno columns

Since taking over as program coordinator, Acheampong has forged partnerships with the new Newark ShopRite; the city's Dunkin' Donuts; Vonda's Kitchen, a Southern comfort food restaurant, and hundreds of other businesses that have put students to work.

"We have kids everywhere," she said. "The firehouses, the prosecutor's office, day cares, churches, Beth Israel. ... We recruit sites, and people want to help because they know we are raising the next workforce."

Part of that workforce was in her Broad Street office last week, just days before they started work Monday. Groups of kids in training squeezed past each other in the crowded hall. Questions flew. Answers flew back. It was chaotic, but in an excited way. These kids were going to have jobs.

James Timmons, a manager at Vonda's Kitchen, told the story of a girl who worked last summer assisting waitresses and working the front desk. She's back this summer and "can do all those jobs by herself," he said.

"ShopRite's goal is to always hire our young people in the summer program for year-round employment," Acheampong said.

"Basically, it's a winning situation for the businesses," she said. "They get to train their employees on the city's dime."

The biggest challenge of the program is to take kids with no job experience and instill in them a work ethic that will lead to success.

Damon Redmond runs the Young Money Manager program, where 20 young adults, usually college students, do peer-to-peer financial coaching with the kids in the summer workforce.

"We give them (the kids) very basic financial literacy," Redmond said. "But the biggest lesson is that they don't have to spend everything they make. We teach them to open bank accounts and put them on a savings plan. My people will check in on them, and make sure they meet their savings goal."

Acheampong also has a force of 35 "life-skills mentors" who look in on the kids.

"We make sure they're dressed appropriately, on time, and conduct themselves properly in a work environment," she said. "We want our young people to really understand that they, too, can be in the shoes of the people they are working for someday."

For Acheampong, the program is about more than putting kids to work for six weeks in the summer. It's about building a strong community, a lesson she learned from her aunt, Davine Armstrong.

"My aunt is an anesthesiologist, but she teaches at East Side High," she said. "She always put the community first and believed in empowering people. Not just her, but my whole family is like that."

Acheampong's sense of empathy perhaps comes from being raised by two deaf parents.

"People who live here (Newark) sometimes limit their neighbors," she said, meaning they don't believe the population as a whole can succeed.

"But everyone is an opportunity," she said. "Everyone has a chance to succeed.

"This program is not just about getting kids off the street," Acheampong said. "It's about giving them skills for the rest of their lives and training a workforce, so they can be great employees for the businesses in their own city."

Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.