Health & Fitness
PKMS Career Day Helps Shape Students' Futures
What do musicians, doctors, chefs and city officials have in common? They were all part of the line-up that made Peekskill Middle School’s Career Day a success.
The event, which featured local celebrities such as violinist Daisy Jopling and City of Peekskill Mayor Frank Catalina, is now in its second year. The day was organized with the help of PKMS’ Assistant Principal June Ann Campolongo and Special Education Teacher Rachele Rice.
“We really wanted our students to get a good feel of what careers and vocations are outside of these school walls,” Rice said. “We also wanted to connect our community with our students and school. Having Career Day here was a nice way to be able to do this because a lot of the people out there working don’t really know what goes on here at our school, and they don’t know how wonderful our students are, so this was a great opportunity to bring them together.”
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To book the day’s 34 guests, Campolong and Rice reached out to the community by making phone calls and posting on social networks to recruit speakers. They even brought in Peekskill High School students Emmanuel Henry and Joshua Gaillard who attend the Culinary Arts program at Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES’ Tech Center. Henry and Gaillard spoke with middle schoolers about how their experience in the Tech program helped influence their career and college choices.
“We came today to talk to the kids about cooking,” said Henry, who works as a chef at the Bear Mountain Inn. “I told the kids how I started in the Culinary Arts program at BOCES in Yorktown and how that was really helpful and effective because my training there helped me get my job in the real world.”
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“The kids were really responsive,” Gaillard added. “A lot of them said they wanted to become bakers, which surprised me because usually you hear people tell you they want to become doctors and lawyers. They were really interested in finding out how they can join the BOCES program and were asking about what qualifications they need and other interesting questions I wasn’t expecting. I’m glad we were able to pass the torch down to them.”
