Santee Chamber Weekly Update 17APR25

Hello Santee!

With schools in town on spring break, students have been all around town and I love seeing them active in our community. It’s a great reminder how much we need to invest in them when it comes to developing the youth into future leaders, communicators, entrepreneurs and beyond. Many of our local businesses are suffering a massive decline in their talent pipeline when it comes to their hiring pool. We see this trend more prevalent in blue-collar industries, where many job roles are not necessarily needing college graduates, but skilled workers ready to be active in a unique role. It is with this that we decided last year to create a skilled trades scholarship and the Chamber gave out $8,000 to graduates of Santana and West Hills High Schools. It is with great pride that we will be doing this again, but only with your help. The Santee Chamber established a foundation recently and last week, we hosted a launch party with the help of Board Chair Susie Parks and Committee Chair Daniel Buksa. Daniel hosted at Mission Realty Group’s office which has become a known place in town for community fundraising. With his energetic attitude and ability to convene people, we raised several thousand dollars to start our campaign for kids. Please consider donating and stay tuned as we honor more students who are excited about trade schools, and in fact, encourage them to apply for this well-needed program: https://santeechamber.com/foundation