The Kenai Chamber of Commerce held their 2023 Job Shadow Day luncheon on Wednesday at Kenai Christian Church for Kenai Central High School juniors and seniors looking to explore the wide variety of careers that the peninsula has to offer.
Around 90 students attended the luncheon and they were placed in host businesses for a shadowing experience. Students were allowed to not only select a first-choice job to explore, but also were able to select second and third choice jobs, with each student being placed in one of their top three selections.
Cheyanne Helm of the Kenai Chamber of Commerce, on the significance of this program;
“You know we’ve got the students to their businesses to you know kind of get out in the workforce and see what it’s like and you know we’ve got fun filled day for them and we’re just really excited about it.”
Helm also discussed the variety of jobs that students were interested in exploring this year;
“So and we’ve got different hair salons the Army National Guard we have the Kenai Police Department Kenai fire department we just have so many different businesses from Kenai to Soldotna you know out on K beach just kind of everywhere.”
Kenai Mayor Brian Gabriel who spoke to the students at the job shadow luncheon discuss the opportunities for students on the Kenai;
“I’ve noticed that you know we had kind of pre COVID and then we had COVID and now we’re coming out of COVID and I think for these young people that you know work opportunities look probably a lot better than they did a couple years ago. And you can get a job pretty much anywhere if you want to learn and put the time in and so for these kids for the time they spent with their various shadows today that they maybe get some idea of a direction they want to go at least.”
The annual Job Shadow Day is organized between the Kenai Chamber of Commerce and Kenai Central High School.
