The Grace Christian Elementary School 1st Annual Career Carnival took place in the spring of the 2019-2020 school year. This event was a fun and informative collaboration between our school and important stakeholders who hold an interest in the continuing development of students in the Hattiesburg Public School District. Here, at Grace Christian Elementary (GCE), our mission is to educate ALL students to become productive citizens of a dynamic, global community. In doing so, we collaborated with First Presbyterian Church, First Community Bank, Grace Christian Elementary PTO, and Hardy Street Baptist.

The GCE 1st Annual Career Carnival was a project that not only helped build student knowledge in the world of work but enabled students to see real individuals from within their community in career fields that they may one day be in themselves!

In preparation for the 1st Annual Career Carnival, stakeholders met on various occasions to determine needs, goals, and how each would contribute. Next, activities were planned out over a period of time that helped build students’ background knowledge. At the school level (school-wide), students received information and participated in activities across various career clusters to build their awareness and knowledge in those fields. Next, amazing personnel from Community Bank (including the Bank resident) brought “Bankers in the Classroom ”to GCE. This program raised students' awareness in the career of banking and the act of saving and spending. Then students gave input on what careers/jobs they would like to learn more about, what games they wanted to play, and what foods they would like to eat at the career carnival. Lastly, school personnel and the partners recruited teachers, parents, and community members to hold a booth or volunteer in some capacity at the event scheduled for March 10, 2020 at 6:00PM.

Working with First Presbyterian Church, Hardy Street Baptist, Community Bank, and the Grace Christian Elementary PTO was very beneficial. The partnership and completed project helped to bridge a gap between our school and local organizations, build college and career awareness and knowledge, expand students’ knowledge of earning, spending, and saving money, and gave students the opportunity to see people from their community in career fields that they learned of during the school year. The Grace Christian 1st Annual Career Carnival was received with positive enthusiasm as well as positive feedback from students, teachers, parents and community partners.

Community Partners:
Partner 1- First Presbyterian Church (Molly Blast), Partner 2- Hardy Street Baptist (Makenzie Pierce), Partner 3-Community Bank (Lennie Shilling & Clayton Rush), Partner 3-Grace Christian Elementary PTO (Michelle Shinall, Crystal Gholar), Partner 4- University of Southern Mississippi (Michelle McLeese and Moneisha Hilbert), Partner 5- Coca Cola of Hattiesburg ( James Coward).