BB2C Events: Family Career Awareness Day-Oct. 19
Join us for Family Career Awareness Day this Thursday, Oct. 19th from 4pm-7pm at the Washington County Junior Fair Building. We are also welcoming volunteers to help us with the various activities throughout the evening. Contact Tonya Davis or Tasha Werry if you are interested in volunteering. Check out our Facebook page to see which local businesses are attending.
Four years ago a subcommittee of BB2C brainstormed ideas of how to get parents involved in BB2C programming. After discussing senior survey data gathered by Family And Children First, Family Career Awareness Day was born. The data showed that mom and dad are the most influential career factors, after personal experience. The idea formed to have a career awareness fair that encouraged parents to attend with their children so that everyone is hearing the same information. Parents would then have information needed to support and guide their children to an informed career decision. We understand parents sometimes have conflicting work schedules, therefore, we have recruited college students to partner with students and help them interact with businesses for those whose parents are unable to attend. These college students have deemed themselves "Rent-A-Moms and Dads" for the evening.
Each year the event has grown with over 50 businesses and 200+ students and parents attending. More and more businesses recognize the need to promote their companies to the youth of our area in order to build a future workforce. We offer a variety of incentives to encourage students to attend the event. We have found no matter what motivates them to participate, they learn things to help them with their future. For the past few weeks we have been giving presentations all over Wood and Washington counties to encourage and prepare students for the event.
Students gain career pathway information as evidenced by an example given from HR personnel at Kraton, who attended for the first year in 2016. In a manufacturing sector partnership meeting, Mr. Hand shared an example of a student who expressed interest in getting her engineering degree and returning to the area to work for Kraton. Mr. Hand informed her of the colleges the company co-ops with so that the student can attend one of those colleges. Completing a co-op with Kraton during college could then lead to future employment with the company. This gave the student a clear path to follow to work her way back to our community after college.
Read the following article from The Marietta Times to find out more about Family Career Awareness Day and one of our own student's perspective about the event: http://www.mariettatimes.com/news/2017/10/family-career-awareness-day-thursday/