Photo Credit: CoolestCoast.com
Manitowoc Lincoln High School held its annual Youth Apprenticeship Night this past Wednesday to celebrate all students, mentors, and business partners involved in the program.
The Youth Apprenticeship program gives junior and senior high-school students the opportunity to explore career pathways while still enrolled in school, as well as earning an income.
The areas of apprenticeships available range from health science to manufacturing to real estate.
The program began in 1995 with only 15 students enrolled, which has now grown to 136 students this school year, with over $1 million earned in wages just this year.
Lincoln’s Youth Apprenticeship Coordinator Bonnie Proszenyak tells Seehafer News, “We’ve grown a lot, and partially because we have such a supportive business community that are offering these opportunities to students, but also because we have a very supportive school of helping prepare students for what’s next.”
Principal Lee Thennes says, along with the growth of the number of participating students, the program now has 74 employer partners involved which can benefit not only apprentices but the school’s community.
“We’ve almost doubled our business partnerships, too, which is also a huge advantage when we’re looking to do special things at the school,” he explained. “Each business has their own niche, and if we have a relationship with them, that is also very beneficial to our school and our community.”
Some businesses are seeing generations of Youth Apprenticeship mentors forming.
At LDI Industries, they currently have at least 8 past apprentices that have full-time jobs at the company and now serve as mentors.
Eric Haban, a graduate of the apprenticeship program now works with incoming juniors and seniors through their career path journey.
He explained, “It gets them real-world knowledge, real-world experience, and gets them to think about and figure out if this is a career path that they can see themselves doing.”
The Youth Apprenticeship program is expected to continue to grow in the upcoming years as it is one of the most successful in the state of Wisconsin.
Any interested incoming juniors or seniors are encouraged to learn more about the advantages of this opportunity through their school as the possibilities of career paths are endless.
