East Aurora Advertiser

Letter to the Editor: Chamber Continues to be Positive Force in Community


Dear Editor,

I wanted to write to you today to share with your readers a new program started by the Greater East Aurora Chamber of Commerce. It’s called “Real World Careers – Meet the Professionals.” 

The goal of this program is to connect business people within our community with students and educators in our area school districts to help students in their career planning efforts. Due to the pandemic, hybrid learning is currently being utilized in our schools; the luxury of students actually leaving school to tour businesses and/or having guest speakers visit the classrooms is very limited. 

The chamber developed an innovative way to connect students with area business people through Zoom technology. 

The concept is simple: twice a month, the chamber invites a local business leader to talk about their business/occupation. The discussions include a description of their business, employment opportunities and educational requirements. 

The chamber moderates the session, asking questions of the presenter and relaying questions asked by the audience. 

So far, we have had presentations from Absolut Care Aurora Park, Astronics, Moog, the Buffalo Niagara Film Commission, Nowak Heating & Cooling, Snyder Construction and the East Aurora Police Department. 

Teachers are using these presentations as virtual tours and for technical writing assignments for English. The response from students has been tremendous with the number of participants growing with each presentation. 

The chamber records and archives all the presentations for future viewing on the chamber’s YouTube channel for those who cannot attend the live Zoom presentations 

As Principal of the Ormsby Center for close to 30 years, I must say that the Greater East Aurora Chamber of Commerce has always been there for my students and staff. From honoring students at its annual Chamber Choice Awards to arranging internship sites for our students to putting employers in touch with our teachers and graduates, the chamber continues to advocate for our career and technical programs. The Greater East Aurora community should be very proud to have this organization working for their students and businesses. 

Thomas J. Huebert

Principal Ormsby Career and Technical Center

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