Junior and senior students at Jamestown High School gathered in the gym Sept. 14 for a free meal from Burgers' Smokehouse.
The Moniteau County Regional Economic Development board's new "Lunch and Learn" program will take businesses to visit each high school in the county. This program will help better the student-employer relationship in the community.
"The economic development council is trying to create partnerships between the schools and local businsses so that students can look at the local businesses in their towns as potential employers once they graduate high school," community organizer Stefani Thompson said.
"A lot of the businesses (in Moniteau County) have expressed that they are not able to find a skilled job force, (we're) just trying to make that connection so that students can be thinking about that before they graduate so that hopefully they can be prepared and ready to do the job once they graduate."
President of Burgers' Smokehouse, Steven Burger, brought cured country ham, cured turkey and cheese for sandwiches. He addressed 25 students on the different opportunities within the company now and possibly in the future.
"If you like a rural environment, if you like Jamestown, you have family here you have a reason to be tied here, there's maybe no reason for you to have to leave for employment," Burger said.
After a brief history lesson, Burger said the company looks for motivated, dependable people. He warned students drugs and employment won't mix.
"It's amazing how many folks that come through our application process, they don't get passed the drug test. If you're on drugs just don't apply. Get yourself off drugs (then) come on over. Sure, we'll talk to you then," Burger said.
Burger also informed students of the company's summer/student programs with flexible hours working in production. This includes many jobs like curing the meats, trimming or packaging and shipping the final product.
Junior Clark Rohrbach was part of the summer program. He said a lot people living in the surrounding areas who did the program with him were college students and saw the job as beneficial.
"Even though I couldn't really work with the meat, I could still work in the plant with the other maintenance guys and that was awesome everybody knew each other really well and it felt like a family there," Rohrbach said.
MRED will have three more lunch and learn opportunities this school year. Arkansas Valley Feathers is scheduled for November. The remaining two will take place in the spring.
"I think it's an exciting program that the MRED helped coordinate a lot of students just wouldn't know about these opportunities unless the businesses become more intereactive with schools," Burger said. "So, I think it's a great program and I'm looking forward to seeing how well it works."