After two months of visits to businesses and presentations from career professionals, the Boys and Girls Clubs of South Central Kansas concluded its Club 2 Career camp with the presentation of “thank you” awards to the dozen companies who introduced the youth participants to a career experience.
The eight teenagers who participated this year all agreed that the field trips providing a “behind the scenes” or an “on-the-job” experience were the high point of the program, which was initiated last year at the club on Opportunity Drive.
For 15-year-old Michael Miller, getting to “fly” the Textron Aviation simulator and learning about cyber security at High Touch Technologies were the highlights of the camp.
“We learned how to do interviews to get a regular job,” he said.
And when it comes time for him to get that job? “I think cyber security, working on computers,” he said.
The favorite experience for Jesse Lamunyon was learning how to use a splint and how to stop bleeding with a tourniquet. He hopes to become a first responder or maybe a sheriff’s deputy.
“I like helping people,” he said.
Charity Veal just turned 16 and says she liked all the new experiences, but especially enjoyed getting to read her story on the current heat wave at the KSN tv studio. Her partner in that endeavor was 15-year-old Jaylee Campbell, who agreed the KSN experience was really fun.
“They said we did a really good job,” Charity said. She said she’s thought about social work as a career field, but now journalism is also in the running. Both girls said they liked having a Community Voice reporter give them pointers on improving their weather story.
For her part, Jaylee said she liked learning about all the jobs you can do without going to college for four years. “I’ve wanted to do something in the medical field,” she says. “We learned about a lot of jobs at Wesley and Via Christi.
Dustyn Bultero is 18 and said his favorite field trip was to Freedom Hooves Therapeutic
Riding Center.
“I love horses,” he said.
But when it comes to career, “I want to be a truck driver,” he said. “Or maybe a horror movie actor.”
Jam Elkins, 17, says she especially enjoyed visiting the hospitals and Sedgwick County EMS.
“I want to do something in the nursing field,” she said.
Khaii Wilson, 16, said he participated in last year’s initial Club 2 Career and was impressed with how much the program grew this year.
“It was way better than last year,” he says. “We did a lot more field trips this year. And we had people come in and tell us about what their job is like and how much school you have to have to do it.”
Khaai is college-bound and wants to study math and business to help him become a social entrepreneur.
“I want to establish programs that help people,” he said. “I’ve been inspired by Boys and Girls Club.”
Derrick Penelton, 17, says his favorite field trip was probably Habitat for Humanity. But his hands-down career-favorite job choice is journalism.
“It was so cool to do that live broadcast at KSN,” he said. “I want to be a writer for broadcast news.”