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Job Shadowing day put local students to work in Williams

Last Thursday was the Williams Rotary Club’s Groundhog Job Shadow Day. The event put 17 Williams High School seniors into workplaces around the community to expose them to a day in the life of local business people.

“It’s really refreshing to see so many kids involved,” said John Sullivan, president of Rotary and executive director of the Williams-Grand Canyon Chamber of Commerce. “I think it (job shadowing) gives young people exposure to the job market.”

The students were placed at the City of Williams, Williams Health Care Center, Williams Police Department, Arizona Public Service, Elephant Rocks Golf Course, Williams Aquatic Center, the Chamber of Commerce, Williams Head Start and the Williams-Grand Canyon News.

“I thank you all for participating,” said sponsor Cindy Christman, who is a Rotary club member and director of WHCC. “It was a great experience for us at the health care center.”

Christman said the experience gave students a small taste of different area jobs.

The shadow day was not just a day off from school, said Arin Fleishman, senior at WHS.

“It was awesome because I actually got to do hands-on stuff,” she said. “It was a lot of fun.”

Fleishman worked with Jay McCallum, physical therapist at WHCC.

After three hours of job shadowing, members of the Williams business community the students and their Rotarian hosts were treated to lunch at Max and Thelma’s Restaurant. There the students gave a brief description of what the whole experience was like.

Foreign exchange student Sebastian Jungblut, who is from Germany, was the job shadow for the News.

“We took a picture and scanned it, and we did all kinds of funky stuff to the picture,” he said about his experiences. “They showed me how a newspaper gets put together.”

Groundhog Job Shadow Day was started in 1996 by the Boston Private Industry Council as a school-to-work initiative. In 1998, the program expanded when America’s Promise, the youth development organization headed by Gen. Colin Powell, joined forces with the National School-to-Work Opportunities Office, Junior Achievement and the American Society of Executives combined their efforts. That year, 125,000 students were placed into the workforce for a day of shadowing. The collective groups’ goal is to have half a million students job shadow each year.


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