Triple J molds students to be future-ready
- Maria Valentina Haberman, Don Castro, and Great Harvest bakers and staff pose with Chacha Oceanview Middle School students. (Bea Cabrera)
- Marianas High School senior student Katherine Angeles has been working at Great Harvest for almost a year now. “I am gaining a lot of experience while working here. I started as a baker and now I moved to being a cashier. I encourage other students to take up a job while in school because the experience is worthwhile and it helps you really think about what career to pursue in the future,” she said. (Bea Cabrera)
Raising funds for the 2018 Marianas March Against Cancer and giving students a head start with their professional lives are why Triple J Saipan is partnering up with Chacha Oceanview Middle School.
“This is our future workforce and we are partnering with them to raise funds for a good cause. This is our second time to work with [these] students,” said Maria Valentina Haberman of Triple J marketing.
Triple J also wants to establish a relationship with the school. “We want the partnership to go a long way and we want to let the students know what opportunities are out there on Saipan,” Haberman said.
Eleven students from Chacha Oceanview, all members of the school’s culinary club, visited Triple J’s bakery Great Harvest in Chalan Piao last Thursday and met the shop’s manager, chef, bakers, cashier, and staff to look at how it was like to work in a bakery.
“We want them to realize that this could be a profession for them some day,” Haberman said. “We want to expose the students to one of the local companies on island and know more about Great Harvest such as the natural ingredients that we use, the service that we provide and we hope that they will take that inspiration once they step into the profession.”
School principal Martha Quinto accompanied the students. “We are happy to be invited by Triple J to come here to raise funds for MMAC 2018 and give the children a first-hand experience of how management and operations are done,” she said.
“The students are in middle school now and, if this is something that they want to pursue, this is a good opportunity to see the how the whole process works… It is both an eye-opener and a good motivation for our students,” she added.
Great Harvest chef Don Castro showed the students around and taught them how to bake cookies that they could sell to raise funds.
“I was born and raised here and I always tell the young ones to aim to finish school, aim for a higher education, and do not see working as a burden but a way to be better in life…Moving forward, passion has to be there because if its there, it is limitless,” he said.
“Find a passion and turn it into a career. It could be cooking, painting, or anything. If you love what you do and if you think you can make a career out of it, then by all means follow it,” he added.