By Megan Kelley
Staff Writer
ORION TWP. — Several area businesses visited Lake Orion High School last Tuesday to showcase some of the many local career and job opportunities available to students.

LOHS teacher and DECA advisor Julia Dalrymple along with Wayne Haney, who founded Orion Opportunities, plan on holding these mini-career fairs during lunches once a term.

Haney, who is a retired teacher, has found that there are many teenagers who do not plan on attending college, trade schools or joining the military and despite that, still need career opportunities that can help them thrive in the future.

“We have our next three days already picked so students will be able to see different businesses,” Dalrymple said. “It also connects to our personal finance class and when students have that class. We’re hoping that they can find an experience or a contact for a job shadow, an internship or even a part-time job or career when they get out of high school.

“We just want them to see that there’s a lot of connections here in their own community to their future.”
Orion Opportunities is a new idea started by Haney with the goal of connecting students with possible employers.

“The whole vision is (that) we have a community that needs a work force and we have young people who need a future and so we’re trying to do some matchmaking and that’s really what this is all about, just getting conversations started and helping people realize we have loads of opportunities’ in Orion for wonderful lives and careers,” Haney said.

“My goal is that every business that has a table here, plants some seeds, starts some good relationships,” said Haney. “These are really meant to be conversation starters.”

All of the businesses involved are local businesses that are interested in connecting with LOHS students for potential career opportunities.

As many business owners are aware, it has been difficult to gain and retain adequate staff to promote growth within their businesses.

“I help a lot of people in our community with commercial insurance and so virtually 100 percent of my commercial clients have said to me, ‘if I only had a workforce, I could expand my hours, expand my business, expand my locations,’ so, every single one of my clients could use more help tomorrow and that’s really what planted the seed in my brain a couple years ago to get it started,” Haney said.

Anyone who owns a business and is interested in working with Orion Opportunities, visit www.orionopportunities.com or stop by Haney Farm Bureau, 18 S Broadway St.