Career fair teaches youth about local trades in their backyard

Local businesses and individuals made investments in their futures by taking part in the Cottonwood Valley Charter School Career Fair for 7-8th graders on May 16.

Piloted by counselor Frances Fuller, students were able to go one-on-one with nurses, plumbers, mechanics, veterinary doctors, and more as part of a hands-on introduction to potential future careers.

It’s Fuller’s first complete year at Cottonwood, and she brought the career fair to campus after listening to her students’ wants and potential needs.

“Some of our students identified at the beginning of the year when we were setting our social-emotional-learning goals that they wanted to learn about college, careers and life after school,” Fuller said. “One of our goals was to have people come in to talk to them.”

It wasn’t hard for Fuller to get volunteers with only conflicting schedules, causing anyone to turn down the opportunity.

“About half of these people today are parents at our school. It’s really nice for them to have meaningful engagement and to be able to come in and share who they are and what they do,” Fuller said.

For many of the career presenters, it was about bringing new blood into their professions, like local plumber Robert Jaramillo, who is carrying on his father’s business legacy while also looking for someone who will take over in the future.

Given Socorro’s geographical location, there is a need for local plumbers who know the infrastructure of local communities, businesses, and homes.

“Why am I here today? We need to have more kids interested and seeing what we do. If we don’t get enough people to continue this trade, our infrastructure will suffer. We’ll get more and more people from out of town, and we lose that talent,” Jaramillo said.

Jaramillo was hands-on with the students who visited his company’s table, and it provided students with the opportunity to put together Pecs pipe with the required accessories and the Pecs pipe wrench, which is challenging to compress.

The plumber is open and honest about his trade, which is rewarding and well-paid, but the work is challenging.

“It’s not an easy job. If it’s hot, it’s dirty. You will be crawling underneath houses, you will be in a hole, and there aren’t any other options,” Jaramillo said, “I’ve been able to be comfortable with my family, and I’m able to take days off like this for the kids. We want the kids to get involved, but there’s no sugarcoating, and plumbing is not an easy job. Stick with it if that’s something you’re interested in, and work hard because you can be successful, and you can make more money than a lot of college graduates.”

As a mother with a son attending Cottonwood, Stephanie O’Toole wanted to expose students to nursing and other careers.

“I used to be the school nurse here, and Lauren is going to be the school nurse next year. We also work at Presbyterian Hospital here in Socorro, and this event is a great opportunity for us to give our youth kind of a picture of what we do and see if they are interested in pursuin

g some sort of healthcare career in the future,” O’Toole said. “In my mind, it’s important because a lot of kiddos in our community don’t have exposure to different careers that are outside of what their direct family does. This fair is giving them a picture of construction, healthcare, being a florist and dance teacher, all of the different things that we have offering here and thinking like that that’s actually something they could do with their lives.”

The lack of such offerings is why Fuller worked toward establishing this year’s career fair.

“We have to focus on our social work and people’s strengths. Getting to know the kids and finding out what’s interesting to them and then fostering it however we can through exposure to different people and different experiences. I think mentorship is critical in forming those relationships. So having people like we have here today, who are part of their community, is really important,” Fuller said.