Career Day: Planning Field Trips for Adults!

Each year Theresa Nemetz, founder of Milwaukee Food & City Tours, donates her time to speak to classes at St. Anthony’s School of Milwaukee during their Career Day. St. Anthony’s is the largest Catholic school in the United States(!!!), and we love sharing our passion for Milwaukee with their students and talking about our career path that has led us to where we are today.

This year we had the chance to meet with kindergartners, first and second graders to discuss owning a small business. What better place to begin than talking about opening a lemonade stand! While opening a lemonade stand is a great way for students to earn some spending cash, it is also an exercise filled with invaluable learning. We brainstormed all of the components needed to get a successful lemonade stand up and running, including sugar, water, ice, lemons, cups, and a table. We talked about how to pick a great spot because “location, location, location” is always key. We collaborated on ideas for a fabulous sign to attract customers to our business. We used our math skills to set our prices and to talk about how to share the profits with friends who would be staffing the stand too.

Culinary tourism can be a big topic for a young yet enthusiastic audience. In order to explain itinerary planning and bus logistics to elementary students, we asked students to tell us about their field trips from the past semester. We heard about some favorites including visits to a local pumpkin farm, the Milwaukee County Zoo, a jelly bean factory and the Milwaukee Public Museum. We talked about what goes into organizing a trip like that, such as bus rental and student capacity, calling the locations where students had gone for their trips and scheduling the trip on a calendar. How did we really explain what do we do? “We organize field trips for adults!” shared Nemetz. Everyone squealed with delight!

Whether you are exploring Milwaukee on our Hop On, Hop Off Sightseeing Bus or eating your way through Milwaukee on our Pizza Bus, you’re on a field trip through Milwaukee! Only our tours don’t happen on that yellow school bus from our collective childhood; they are crafted for you complete with a ride in our signature green buses and of course, a taste of our favorite foods! No matter what your/our age, we always have some favorite foods in common! Who doesn’t love pizza or tacos?!?

After explaining our business to the students, we all shared the healthy snack that we brought along, as well as handing out what we know to be quite the hot commodity amongst 5-year-olds: stickers! We then unleashed the students’ creativity with an activity for them to design their own bus, then stand up to share with their classmates what businesses they want to open someday. It was inspiring and fun watching this young generation learning to envision themselves as creators of their own careers.

We can’t wait until the next Career Day!