Mike Clayborne, president of the CREATE Foundation, spoke Tuesday to members of the Columbus Rotary Club about a career expo which the foundation is helping put together for eighth grade students in northern Mississippi, including the Golden Triangle.
The event will be held October 4-6 at the BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo and will include companies from all over northern Mississippi to talk with students about different career options.
Clayborne said CREATE helped put together a career expo for the eighth graders in seven counties last October. Toyota sponsored the event, which about 2,000 students attended. Booths from different companies and organizations representing different career pathways were set up all through the arena. The students had two hours and 15 minutes and could go to whichever career booths interested them.
Clayborne showed a short video about the expo which included students milling around the arena, talking to everyone from newscasters to paramedics to scientists. The expo was interactive, and many teens got to try their hands at construction work, try on Kevlar vests, operate machinery and inject a needle into the vein of a fake arm provided by medical services.
This year, Clayborne said, CREATE has expanded the event to include students from all 17 counties which CREATE serves, including about 750 eighth graders from Lowndes County. He encouraged club members to get involved with the career expo by sponsoring a student, volunteering at the event or participating in a pathway. He added that he wants industries in the Golden Triangle to be represented.
Often educators become too wrapped up in test scores to focus on career awareness and readiness, Clayborne said. This particularly hurts students who come from homes without high expectations for education or who do not have “career role models,” he said. By focusing on eighth graders — who Clayborne said are just beginning to seriously think about what careers they might want to choose — he wants to show students all their options and help them realize what kind of education they will need to follow their chosen career path.
To participate in the career expo or to volunteer or sponsor a student, contact Clayborne at 662-844-8989 or email him at [email protected].
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