High school seniors attend career awareness event

NORWALK — Area high school seniors had the opportunity to attend the first Senior JumpStart, a career awareness event, via Zoom on Friday. The event was hosted by the Norwalk Economic Development Corp., Erie County Economic Development Corp., Firelands Forward and Huron County Ohio Means Jobs. To prepare for the event, 350 seniors in Erie and Huron counties took part in an aptitude assessment. The data was then used to build a morning of career awareness panels featuring local businesses. Each hour, the students and speakers met on one Zoom call that began with speakers on tourism, leadership and the legacy you wish to leave behind, entrepreneurship and more. Afterward, they broke off into separate virtual rooms such as health and human services, information technology, hospitality and tourism, government and public safety, etc. In the hospitality and tourism room, students learned that every day of work could bring its own challenges. "At Cedar Point, every day is a little bit different," said Carrie Boldman, corporate vice president of merchandise and games at Cedar Fair. Students also learned that it is alright to work your way up. "My first job was sitting on the laundry table folding laundry, and my sisters and I worked our way up," said Lisa Sortino, a partner at LLV Group."The key to all of this is that bottom-up mentality. Just get in there and learn about your community." Boldman added: "You're going to grow, evolve and change." She was going to be a social worker but ended up staying in the theme park business. It is important, according to speakers, to find a company or business you enjoy and ask for help when you need it. In health and human services, one of the biggest things students learned is that it is good to know exactly what you want to do, and also have many interests and not be quite sure. Patty Abrigo-Naidenoff, the owner of Integrated Therapeutic Healing, knew what she wanted to do from a young age. Her mother was a pediatrician, which led her to volunteer at the hospital in Elyria during high school. After seeing all of the different departments, she decided that she wanted to become a physical therapist. After many years in the career, she opened her own practice incorporating yoga therapy. Kimberly Hunter, the assistant director and adult librarian at the Norwalk Library, is still deciding what she wants to do. "At a very young age I wanted to be an architect," she said. While in college, she decided she loved learning about architecture but did not have the artistic eye for it. Hunter ended up graduating in comparative religion and math. Hours in retail did not work, but she loved the aspect of helping customers. After working in multiple libraries she realized, "my interests vary, and the library gives me the opportunity to explore and help others explore what interests them." "I still don't know what I want to do in life, but I do know I want to help people." After the four-hour event, high school seniors left more informed of the different, diverse careers available to them in their own area.