Posted by Jackson Bubolz on Jun 01, 2022
The Elmbrook Rotary Club (ERC) has consistently focused on enhancing the opportunities of the students in our community. The LAUNCH program of Elmbrook has been a wonderful way to focus time and resources back into the high schools in our immediate school districts.
 
On 31 May, the ERC sponsored a large conference room block for the LAUNCH program's "Watch It Live" so their students could showcase what their semester's efforts had created. 
 
The LAUNCH program represents over 400 sophomores, juniors, and seniors from the Elmbrook and Wauwatosa School Districts. Student are grouped into interest "strands" such as global business, future teachers, business analytics, media solution, IT, engineering, healthcare solutions, manufacturing, and several other options. Student groups are paired up with mentors from related industries to receive insight and training from beyond the school's walls. Each mentor brings a real life "problem statement" from their business to the project. The student's job is to solve the problem through their own resources and rely on the mentor for guidance during challenges or confusion. 
 
 
Areas in which a Rotarian can get involved are:
  • Launch needs guest coaches each semester to listen to their problem statement, review their current progress, and provide feedback. This is a 90-minute commitment each session, and there are no minimum/maximum sessions in which one must be involved.
  • Launch needs interviewers. Each semester LAUNCH provides their students an opportunity to mock-interview with an adult who has real life work experience. This is a few hours commitment once or twice a semester.
  • If your business has projects they aren't getting to, bring those challenges to the LAUNCH program. This requires a weekly commitment of spending an hour with the students, working through the problem statement, and helping them to develop their ideas into real strategies.
Does this sound like a project you might be interested?
 
Please connect with Jack Nelson or Doug Hafemann for more details. If nothing else, please check out the next "Watch It Live" session in the Fall to understand better how our club's time, effort, and funds are serving those around us. 
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