There was great turnout at Beacon High School’s Career Fair today! Plenty of interested students asked questions... and foraged for free cookies. A Little Beacon Blog bribed passers-by with stickers, and for the writers and bloggers in the house (they are usually very shy and quiet when approaching the table), we gave writers our tote bag.

Each year we are happy to engage with teens to show them the resources they didn’t know about yet, like our recent article about the (free) Dia Teens Art Program, and the Open Sketch session at the Beacon Library. One student who visited the table is about to be published in the Poughkeepsie Journal for an article she wrote!

Salon Dae (the salon near Dutchess Airport) was in attendance with opportunities for hair stylists, and did braiding on the spot. Next to Salon Dae was Twins Barber Shop from Beacon’s Main Street, clipping away. The Twins always draw the largest crowd!

Across the way were the fire 🔥 fighters, who were giving demonstrations using a smoke machine. Antalek & Moore Insurance brought their corn hole game and had quite the competitions going on. For the rest of us, it was hard to compete with all that action!

The EMS Education table was in a good spot to reach interested prospective first responders, who need the education first to even get into the field. Other first responders included the Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps and the Beacon Police.

A Little Beacon Blog’s table was in between Wingate’s caregivers table, answering questions for men and women who might want to go into nursing and caregiving, which we learned provides job security as there has been a shortage of nurses, we were told. Dutchess County Tourism was on our other side - where we learned all sorts of things like how they are organizing workshops for businesses to help educate about best practices, like ADA compliance for websites. Good stuff, those busy bees are doing over there!

If you’re a business who wants to represent at the Beacon Career Fair next year and reach the students, email the organizer, school counselor Michele Polhamus at polhamus.m@beaconk12.org. The notification about the Career Fair usually goes out in March-ish for this annual May event.