Tomah Chamber & Visitors Center Newsletter August 2018 | Page 24

Wednesday, July 25, 2018 Dear Valued Member, One of our cornerstone initiatives this year is to tackle the issue of workforce in our area. One avenue we can provide potential solutions is to establish a career link between our business community and Tomah Area Schools. As many of you are aware, all Tomah students participate in a career planning program called “Career Cruising.” Recently, the state has added an extension to the Career Cruising platform called “Inspire.” Inspire is designed to provide direct access between students and our Tomah business community while the students are exploring potential career paths. Through this program, participating businesses are also given the advantage of networking and working with a large pool of students that will become this area’s future workforce. The Chamber is fully endorsing this effort and is asking our membership to get involved as one of our primary goals as an organization is to help our area businesses identify solutions to the workforce issues they are facing. There is also no cost to participate. There are numerous ways to participate in this program. As a “Community Partner” the information about your business that you choose to share will automatically be uploaded to Career Cruising in order to provide information to the students interested in your field of business. You can also actively participate by designating which work based learning activities you want to offer, or even sign up as an independent “Career Coach” if you wish to provide guidance and information about a skill or a career you possess. Signing up is easy and it takes around twelve minutes of your time. Simply click on this link http:// www.7riversalliance.org/inspire-7rivers and follow the menu of steps by clicking “continue” after each slide. If you need help signing up or would like more information, you can reach out to Chris Hardie’s team at 7 Rivers Alliance by dialing [phone] or emailing [email protected]. Let’s make this another example of how we can each help to strengthen the economic foundation of our community! Best, Tina Thompson Tomah Chamber and Visitors Center President/CEO 24