Kiara Llangari carefully decorated her cupcake, placing a few miniature marshmallows on dollops of frosting and dabbing them with yellow food coloring. The top of the treat looked like buttery popcorn.
Alondra Llangari, Kiara Llangari and Jimena Quizhpi finish decorating their cupcakes with food dye.
Organizers of a career camp in Scranton hope that by the end of this week, students such as Kiara will have future career goals and dreams pop into their minds.
“It’s been nice exploring things I’d like to do. I’ve been finding out some things I’d like to join, like the army,” said the 13-year-old, who will be in eighth grade at Northeast Intermediate School in Scranton in the fall. “I want to design things someday.”
Registration for the Scranton School District’s Career Quest Summer Camp filled quickly. Representatives from different businesses, colleges and careers join the 90 fifth- through eighth-grade students each day, leading them in activities and exposing them to possibilities. The camp, which includes meals and transportation to Scranton High School, is funded with a grant from the Lackawanna County Workforce Development Board.
“I’m hoping that this is something that we can grow and do again next year,” said Katona Woodbridge, the district’s STEMM (science, technology, engineering, math and medicine) program supervisor. “The kids seem to be fully immersed, and I mean it’s amazing.”
Learning about careers
Camp started Monday with students learning about civil service. A visit from the Scranton Fire Department included a lesson on how firefighters use levers and pulleys. Students watched a police dog demonstration and learned how the U.S. Postal Service delivers mail — a lesson that captivated students since most had never mailed a letter, Woodbridge said.
Students learned about careers in education and food service on Tuesday, with the rest of the week including health care, engineering and manufacturing. Lessons include the wide variety of careers in each sector.
“I’ll hear ‘I want to be a nurse or a doctor.’ I never hear ‘surgical technician, radiologist.’ There’s a lot of other careers in healthcare,” Woodbridge said. “Today in education, they learned about speech pathologists, school counselors, not just your teacher.”
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Sara Grande from the Lackawanna College School of Hospitality discusses why she chose fifth grader Jake Cognetti’s cupcake to win one of the best decorated.at the career camp at Scranton High School.
Aimee Dilger / WVIA News
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Chance McCulough holds up his cupcake topped with “extra butter.”
Aimee Dilger / WVIA News
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Gabrielle Beauvais, a sixth grade student, uses icing to make her cupcake look like it is topped with popcorn.
Aimee Dilger / WVIA News
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Students in the career camp at Scranton High School gather tools to make cupcakes.
Aimee Dilger / WVIA News
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Jack Schalk, a fifth grade student, decorates his cupcake .
Aimee Dilger / WVIA News
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Clara Evans, a fifth grade student, carefully begins decorating her cupcake.
Aimee Dilger / WVIA News
Cupcakes and possibilities
Sara Grande wore her Lackawanna College chef jacket and hat as she discussed careers in food service and led the students in the cupcake decorating lesson. Grande, recruiter and front-of-house experience manager with Lackawanna’s student-run restaurant, told students about options.
“There are so many jobs in this industry, and if you look around in Northeastern Pennsylvania, we need good bakeries. We need good chefs,” she said. “Now in a post-COVID world, it’s a sustainable job. They’re looking for educated chefs.”
Keegan Tigue and his friends aren’t sure what they want to do after high school. But they have time — Keegan will start seventh grade at the district’s STEMM Academy this fall.
The friends worked on their cupcakes, taking a short break to list the many things they had learned after only two days at camp. It got the boys thinking about possibilities.
“It can set you up for your future,” Keegan said of learning about different careers.
Grande presented whisks to students who had created some of the most impressive cupcakes, including Kiara.
There was one thing left to do: eat their cupcakes.
Students created cupcakes that look like they’re topped with popcorn.