Megan Wingo and Ashby McCoy welcome guests, students and volunteers to the event.
Last Thursday, December 8th, FuturesNW hosted over 25 community leaders from the construction/advanced manufacturing and healthcare fields at Options High School for a successful morning of workshops! While this event was only open to Options students, it was the first of a larger, scaled-out series of Learning with Leaders events, thanks to our Career Connect Washington grant, that will begin in the Fall of 2023. Stay tuned for more details as they unfold.
Dental workshop prepping stations for students to engage in different activities.
Learning with Leaders connects students with in-demand career pathways by providing exploration that focuses on local employment, education, and support services. All Learning with Leaders workshops are designed to be hands-on, experiential activities where students get the opportunity to actually practice a skill used in a trade or profession and discover their strengths through kinesthetic learning. Students are encouraged to ask questions, engage in activities, and be curious about what they might be interested in doing after high school. The core of the Learning with Leaders program is to help guide students in discovering their strengths, showing them what they can become, and how they can get there.
Karen Piette talks students through their hands on “blood” drawing experience
During the weeks leading up to the event, Options students got to preview who the guest facilitators would be and what their workshop would showcase. Based on what fields and workshop descriptions interested them, students registered for one workshop per each of the three sessions. Workshop activities ranged from collecting fake blood for a mock phlebotomy in a medical assisting workshop to testing solar water pumps in a renewable energy workshop. In addition to the diverse variety community leaders who came to tell their stories and show students what they do, there were support service workshops such as college speed-dating, financial aid and scholarship support, resume-building, and a Community and Technical College application completion workshop.
With a hugely successful day, we want to thank all of our community partners, leaders, and volunteers that participated and made this event possible. Our guest facilitators included Career Coach Monique Stefens, Brady Lester from Western Solar; Stephanie Bostwick, Lisa Redsteer, and Christian Cultee from Northwest Indian College; Dustin Bliss, Sam Kloes, and Elyssa Kuik from WRS; George Mehler from PACCAR; Pat Burnett from Whatcom Community College; Shaun Sowell and her team of graduate students from Western Washington University; Karen Piette and Melissa Perrin from Whatcom Community College; Alisa Wollens and Nina Karhinen from Bellingham Technical College; Tye Smith and Julie Williams from Skagit Valley College; Lauren Kackley and Karen Morris from Options High School; Lizbeth Gonzalez Vasquez from Bellingham Technical College; Shoshaunee Perez from Northwest Indian College; Marilú Fernandez from Skagit Valley College; Nubia Robles from Whatcom Community College; Ashley DeLatour from FuturesNW; and Rae Larson from the Whatcom Community College Foundation.
The College Speed-dating workshop where students got the opportunity to talk one-on-one with admissions reps from all of our local five colleges
This event would not have been possible without the help of FuturesNW staff, Options High School staff (with extra kudos to Lauren Kackley and Joe Wooding), and our amazing volunteers which included Stacey Nordtvedt from FuturesNW, Lisa Sohni from North Sound ACH/Oral Health LIN, Cori A. Garcia Hansen and Deja Svastisalee from WCC/AHECWW, and Lee Carter from the Northwest Carpenter’s Institute. Finally, we are so grateful for all the food we were able to nourish our guests and students with at this event all donated by The Bagelry, Starbucks, Trader Joes, Options High School, and US Foods Chef’s Store.
Check out the photos below to see what the day looked like, and stay tuned to hear about future events on the Learning with Leaders page!
