Become a VOICE Volunteer Professional and Inspire Children in Your Community

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If you have a career that you are passionate about and want to inspire children to find a career they can be passionate about then join us as we use VOICE to grow children's career aspirations! OACAC is looking for professional volunteers to give a 7 to 10min presentation about their career within one of the 6 different career pathways to elementary aged children (K-5th) for the VOICE project. VOICE is an opportunity for you to have a positive impact on youth, your community, and grow and sustain the future of your career field!

VOICE (Vocational Opportunities Inspiring Children in Elementary) is a project of the Ozarks Area Community Action Corporation (OACAC). It encourages elementary school aged participants to explore six career paths through interactive, hands-on experience. It was created to give children living in poverty an opportunity to be exposed to a wider range of career choices and growing their career aspirations, by creating opportunity for building ambitions and goals. The first step to breaking the hold of generational poverty is reaching children.

Time Commitment:
A typical VOICE Experience will last 1 hour per Experience, however, most schools ask to host 2 to 3 Experiences back to back (3hrs) in order to allow all students an opportunity to participate. Volunteers are encouraged to commit the full 3hrs. If you are interested in participating as a professional volunteer select this opportunity to be contacted by local Neighborhood Center staff and receive more information on dates and locations that volunteers are needed for.

What does a VOICE Experience look like, and what does a professional volunteer do?
As a professional volunteer you will give about a 7-10 minute presentation, which will generally include a simple age appropriate interactive activity. The context of the presentation can include the different aspects of the career, the steps to attain a career in your field, and a little about your own personal career journey. Past volunteers have simply brought items for the kids to touch for the interactive part, others have been more elaborate. It can be whatever the volunteer is comfortable doing. The goal is to make the presentation as memorable and engaging for the children as possible as well as reinforcing the importance of education and positive life choices.

Each VOICE session is about one hour and can hold up to 60 students. The students are broken up into small groups of 10 and will rotate from table to table until they have visited each booth learning about the different careers being presented.

If you enjoy working with children and sharing your passion for the career path of your choice, we would love to have you come be a professional volunteer and present on your profession at one of our VOICE Experiences. Check out the OACAC website to view more about VOICE: https://oac.ac/voice-experience/

What are the 6 career pathways?

Arts and Communication

Business Management and Technology

Natural Resources and Agriculture

Human Services

Industrial and Engineering Technology

Health Services