Dear Bay Area manufacturers,
If you’ve already conquered your big New Year’s pledge (or are looking for one that doesn’t have to do with exercise or eating :-), here’s one that’s easy to keep
— “I’m going to help out a local K-12 school, get kids interested in making and designing stuff, and have fun doing it!”
If that’s something you’d like to do (and who wouldn’t), then keep reading.
The community colleges have a Volunteer Match website that helps to match you with K-12 teachers looking for help around manufacturing, engineering, or the skilled trades. You simply go online, search for local teachers looking for your type
of expertise, arrange a time with the teacher, and then go speak/give demos and answer student questions for an hour or so (or donate equipment, give a plant tour, etc.). We have teachers looking for machinists, CAD designers, civil engineers, carpenters,
welders, auto techs, etc.
For a quick view of what teachers are looking for help, go to:
If you want to volunteer, it takes about 2 minutes to register. From as little as an hour in the classroom giving a talk, to judging or mentoring science and robotics teams, to hosting plant tours or donating equipment, etc., there are a range of ways you can
volunteer.
We’ve just launched this service, so we have a few teachers now, but we're working to add more - so you can look for volunteer opportunities close to work or close to home. And if you have kids and would like for their teachers to sign up, just
send them to the site and they can sign-up and input their requests as well.
So check it out now and help students get excited about manufacturing! Feel free to forward this on to others at your workplace that might be interested.
Regards,
Mark
P.S. And if you’re not sure what you’d do/talk about for an hour in a class, check out Activity Suggestions at:
