Hundreds of elementary school students attend career day in Nipomo

NIPOMO, Calif. -- Friday marked the return of a popular educational event for elementary school students in South San Luis Obispo County.

For several hours, Dorothea Lange Elementary School hosted the Lucia Mar Unified School District Career Day. Due to COVID-19, it was the first time in three years the event was able to be held.

"You could feel the energy," said school counselor and organizer Aaron Meloncon. "The kids were really excited about the different career professionals that were here giving them information about the jobs and I think that got them kind of excited about or got them thinking about what they want to do in the future. I hoping that works out so they're more motivated and interested in what they're doing in the classroom."

According to Meloncon, around 1,000 students from several area schools attended, including Lange, Dana, Nipomo, Oceano and Shell Beach.

"You get to learn," said Dana 6th grader Rosalie Gastelum. "You get to learn new things about what people do on a daily basis."

The students were able to walk around the school's multipurpose room, as well as an outdoor area and personally speak to about three dozen professionals from a variety of occupations.

"I like that we got to learn about all the different careers and we got to think of future job possibilities and it just helped me think of future careers," said Lange 6th grader Brielle Keller. "It is important because it's good to have an idea of what your job to be, so that way you can get good grades in high school in order to get into those colleges that specialize in those careers."

Some of the job fields that were represented included professionals public safety sector, corrections, aerospace industry, culinary arts, educational fields, recreation services, microbiology, speech therapy, marine science and many others.

"This gets the wheels turning and gets the students thinking, what do I want to do, and then the big part of what we were trying to do here today is to relate how what you are doing right now is going to give you opportunities to do whatever you want later on," said Meloncon. "You don't have to have your mind made up of what you want to do, but at least this was supposed to get them excited about thinking about the possibilities, and then trying to move that enthusiasm into the classroom."

In addition, NewsChannel reporter Dave Alley, who also serves as the station's community liaison also attended. Unlike his daily duties when he's out in the field conducting interviews, on this day, the tables were turned and he fielded questions from the students about the television news industry.

The Career Day was highlighted the arrival of a Calstar Air Medical Services helicopter, which landed on the campus right at the start of the event.