At age 14, Savannah Jefferson is considering a career in forensic science, maybe one day as a private investigator. In addition to dabbling with the culinary arts, becoming a professional softball player is also something she is thinking about.
The bright 8th grader from Asheville Middle School still has plenty of time to decide, but the WORX Project gives her lots of options to consider in the meantime. The summer camp provides students with “real world” experience in construction, culinary arts, outdoor products manufacturing, agriculture, and environmental sciences.
“I think it’s good not to be so set on just one thing because you never know what opportunities are going to come to you, maybe in the future, or even right now,” Jefferson said. “It’s good to be curious about everything.”
All in a day’s work
Each week in the summer, the WORX Project provides middle schoolers like Savannah with a five-hour, day camp experience that highlights career pathways. Roughly 60 students per weekly session gather on the 26-acre Fairview, NC campus of Camp Grier, the parent organization that started the WORX Project.
At camp, play is an important part of the experience, but so is work. Mornings are exclusively devoted to learning about different careers in Western North Carolina, said Jason McDougald, executive director of Camp Grier.
“These kids are getting to meet folks in different industries and learn about what they do — anything from the construction trades to culinary and hospitality to outdoor recreation manufacturing. It’s a career camp model.” McDougald added that afternoon activities include traditional summer camp activities such as swimming, hiking, arts and crafts or canoeing.
Ensuring the program is free of cost to students is also vital to creating an opportunity for some families that might otherwise be out of reach. “Even though they live here in the mountains, many Asheville City and Buncombe County school kids don’t get to experience the outdoors like other families might. Providing that access to them is important to us,” McDougald said.
Since launching in 2023, the program has served more than 700 public school students ages 11 to 18 through Asheville City Schools and Buncombe County Schools.
The great outdoors
A year after launching in 2023, the WORX Project received a three-year, $500,000 grant from Dogwood Health Trust to provide public school students with authentic out-of-school learning opportunities and career exploration and training experiences. The grant also included participation in the WNC After 3PM Collaborative, a cohort of 47 afterschool-funded partners who meet regularly to collaborate and share learning and best practices that strengthen the afterschool network across WNC.
Out-of-school time learning opportunities matter, and according to McDougald, the setting and hands-on approach at the WORX Project transforms the way his young participants engage and the way that employer partners teach. “There’s a lot of interest from the industry to connect with students, but doing so in a classroom can be kind of sterile,” he said. “At camp, employers are really excited to come out and share what they do with young people and everyone is more open to connecting. It’s less intimidating.”
Savannah agrees. “A lot of the time when you’re learning in school, you’re stuck in one room. Being able to be out there at WORX, I could explore and do things my way, but still be safe and have fun too,” she said.
Chef Lee “Natty” Trebotich owns Food for Adventures, one of 17 local businesses collaborating with the WORX Project. Trebotich has offered summer culinary arts classes through the WORX Project for the past four years.
“These kids are getting a unique hands-on culinary experience learning how to cook from-scratch recipes in an outdoor kitchen. We teach everything from proper sanitation to fire building. They’re also learning how to adhere to food safety and sanitation guidelines and Leave No Trace wilderness principles to protect the environment.”
After learning how to make anything from homemade pizza to soup, waffles or beignets in Trebotich’s outdoor kitchen, students join his professional team and assist in preparing and serving a meal for all campers.
Timing is everything
McDougald points out that while the out-of-school setting of the WORX Project offers unique benefits, the timing in a young person’s life does too. Middle school presents a unique opportunity to address what many educators refer to as the exposure gap in workforce development, a disconnect between a student’s natural talents and the careers they actually know exist.
“The earlier you can expose kids to a wide array of careers, the better, the outcomes for students can be because they learn what they enjoy and what their strengths are and where their interests lie,” McDougald said.
Businesses certainly infuse the WORX Project, but afterschool partners also make it tick, by helping support program delivery as stand-in support staff. Nia Teshomee is a 16-year-old peer mentor from Asheville High School with the In Real Life (IRL) afterschool program. She accompanies groups of IRL middle school campers to summer sessions.
In addition to learning about trades, Teshomee has witnessed young people learn about connecting with others. “I saw a lot of kids who didn’t know each other start talking to each other and working together in activities, and in the end, they come out like best friends. They can’t wait to come back.”
Beyond new friendships and soft skills like communication and collaboration, WORX provides hundreds of middle schoolers each summer with a critical head start towards their ultimate professional futures, reminding students like Savannah Jefferson that when it comes to career exploration it is, indeed, “good to be curious about everything.”
