High schools around the world aim to prepare students for life beyond their hometowns. What happens once the football games and school dances come to an end? One of Gorham High School’s (GHS) main missions is to ready graduates for the next chapter of their lives and to aid them in making big decisions.

Aspire Gorham is a community-wide initiative that works to introduce K-12 students of Gorham Schools to different career paths and options. Choosing a job or a college that is the right fit can be daunting. Fortunately, students now have this program to aid in that process. The initiative collaborates with Gorham businesses and employers to directly connect students with professionals. Students can introduce themselves, ask questions, and have quality conversations with these experts.

In December, eight virtual career sessions were held over Zoom. Students gained insight from guest speakers, which included psychologists, engineers, tradesmen, the game operations manager for the Boston Celtics, and more. Aspire Gorham has also introduced a monthly newsletter, featuring their projects and plans.

Jen Belanger is the communications coordinator for Aspire Gorham, which involves connecting administrations to schools and beyond. She mainly works with elementary and middle school levels. Eliza Kenigsberg, on the other hand, is the career coordinator at GHS. She typically collects student data and interests, then sets up career meetings, like the Zoom sessions. Most recently, Belanger and Kenigsberg have developed a new poster initiative within Aspire Gorham.

These posters, spread across Gorham Schools, feature staff and members of the community. Along with their job title, a few prompts are included on the poster with answers. The prompts ask about the individual’s journey through job discovery. What jobs did they once want? How were they exposed to them?

Kenigsberg hopes these posters will “spark conversation and connection between students and staff about career aspirations.” She also believes that the visually appealing posters will attract readers as well as help Aspire Gorham become more familiar to the student and staff body.

Belanger and Kenigsberg outlined the process in a video on the Aspire Gorham YouTube channel. Belanger explained that they had created some exemplar posters and found a solid way to do it. First, they gathered information through Google Forms. Then, they ran all the information through a template. “Our intention is to start at GHS (where this culture already exists), then extend these posters into the rest of the Gorham Schools,” said Belanger.

This exciting initiative is just one of Aspire Gorham’s many ideas. Plan on seeing more of this program in the future.

For more information, visit the Aspire Gorham website.