Kids Career Fair Attendees Can ‘Expect to Engage’
CANFIELD, Ohio — From designing and printing T-shirts to cooking to making keychains with 3D printers, there will be plenty of opportunities for kids to get hands on during the Kids Career Fair this month.
The event is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 26 at Mahoning County Career and Technical Center at 7300 N. Palmyra Road. The Kids Career Fair will showcase career opportunities in the area that kids and parents may not know about.
As of this posting, more than 30 businesses are registered to be on hand for the event, each with an activity that kids can “expect to engage” with at their display table, says Jessica Cene, marketing and job placement coordinator at MCCTC. A majority of the school’s labs will also be present, including culinary, cosmetology and creative arts, she says.
Business can still register to participate, Cene notes.
Claudia Kovach, vice president of City Machine Technologies Inc., approached MCCTC about holding the event with Oh Wow! The Roger & Gloria Jones Children’s Center for Science & Technology, Cene says. The goal was to expose elementary and middle school students to local career paths they and their families might not be aware of that don’t require a college degree.
“Children are our future,” Kovach says. “One day, they will be applying for jobs in town and wouldn’t it be nice to learn some ended up in their specific career field because they attended this event and learned about a new line of work that wasn’t taught at home or at school?”
Students typically tour the programs at MCCTC in 10th grade. But sometimes that’s already too late to grab their interest, Cene says.
“When they come out here for their 10th grade year, sometimes it’s the first they’ve ever heard of career tech or manufacturing,” Cene says. “Students don’t know what it is.”
The organizations are partnering to increase the awareness of those options to kids at a younger age to get them thinking about them, as well as the careers they could work locally.
“There’s organizations and businesses locally that you can get hired through and really make a good living,” she says. “You don’t necessarily need to leave Ohio to find a good job.”
In addition to introducing younger students to those career paths, older students will have the opportunity to meet with some of those local employers and “maybe get some interviews,” she says. MCCTC is encouraging its juniors and seniors to attend.
Some of the organizations and employers on hand include City Machine Technologies, the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition, the Western Reserve Building Trades, Gemco Aviation, Youngstown State University of STEM, Vallourec, Angels for Animals and a number of daycares.
“We pretty much have it all over the board,” Cene says.
The first 500 students to attend receive a free sports backpack to carry all their swag from the event.
Students and their families interested in learning more about MCCTC can attend the school’s open house from 6 to 8 p.m. on Feb. 10. Click HERE to register for the open house.
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