HONESDALE, Pa. — It's called the Youth Corner, and it's the newest addition to the Wayne Pike Work Force Alliance office here in Honesdale. It has tools for students to explore a variety of careers.
"We have some simulators, and we have resources providing our youth in case they want to go ahead and explore different career interests. We have a welding simulator, we have a 3D printer, we also have a driving simulator," says Jo Ann Wetherington, Workforce Youth Specialist.
The career development center added the corner for its youth workforce program. It aims to help area high school seniors, graduates, and college students who don't have a set plan.
"We've specifically worked with certain colleges and certain programs in those colleges, but we do have partners in our community that we also utilize," says Maria Kovaleski, Director of Workforce Development.
The workforce alliance also offers summer internships for high school and college students to help them determine their career paths.
"You might go into something and think this is what you want to do and then realize it's not for you, and then that way--we're trying to minimize our students going into these career paths that they envision and then get to college and then realize oh this is not what I want," said Wetherington.
The youth corner is just another tool to help continue meeting the community's needs.
"We want to make it welcoming; we want to bring in as many technology items to give our participants that real feel," says Kovaleski.
"I want them to explore now, while they're still young, and they can use our resources and try out different things," says Wetherington.
The workforce alliance plans to have more open houses to show more students what their future could look like.