More students are seeing opportunities to explore careers in skilled trades thanks to an increasing focus throughout St. Clair County by multiple stakeholders.

Last week, despite the cold, more than 1000 students attended the Blue Water Building Trades Career Fair at Goodells County Park. This hands-on experience is a great addition to other local opportunities that allow students to explore future careers, like this past March where almost 5,000 students and their families attended STEM Fest on the campus of SC4.

“There is clearly a growing recognition that we need to help students explore all of their options after high school,” said Randy Maiers, president of the Community Foundation. “These two recent events have proven very popular, and later this fall our region will participate in Manufacturing Day.”

This is the third year for the building trades fair and students explored 38 exhibits of various construction trades, many with hands-on experiences, and had access to more than 100 industry representatives. Some employers were also offering on-the-spot job interviews. Cristine Robson, event chair and youth program coordinator at Macomb/St. Clair Michigan Works!, said 12 students were hired into full-time employment or apprenticeship as a direct result of the event in 2022. 

“The event creates equitable access to rural students so that they, too, can benefit from large-scale, hands-on career exploration programming that is not otherwise locally available,” Robson said.

The idea for the event first came about when LiUNA (Laborers’ International Union of North America) approached Michigan Works! about seeing a lack of rural students from the Thumb Region attending career fairs in the metro area.

Robson said the first event had modest attendance, but after the planning committee identified the attendance barriers of transportation and lunch costs participation has grown. This year 12 high schools in St. Clair County and another 10 from Lapeer, Macomb and Sanilac counties came thanks to help from a $7,575 grant for lunches from the Community Foundation’s Grants Committee and Youth Advisory Council.

In addition to these larger efforts, other local groups such as SONS and the Athletic Factory are also expanding their programs to include more hands-on learning and exposure to the career options in skilled trades.  

“The Community Foundation is proud to be able to provide financial support for these programs,” Maiers said.