• Posted: September 25, 2019
• Community Building, Safety, Training

On Wednesday, September 18, St. Rita High School partnered up with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 134 Union and the Electrical Contractors’ Association of City of Chicago for an interactive, hands-on experience for our Ritamen. This is the beginning of our partnership with IBEW Local 134 and ECA Chicago which will stretch out over the coming school year and beyond. Seventeen St. Rita seniors were at Local 134 for the day. They met with four apprentice school instructors. The day began with a little “PT”—physical training or exercise that apprentice students do every day, to give our young men a realistic look at the things they may do in the first 11 weeks of their electrical construction program.

The Ritamen also took a tour of the facility, while wearing hard hats, gloves, glasses and tool bags, to simulate the equipment needed and used for Electrical workers. Among the demonstrations seen, Ritamen learned measurements and how to do quick math work in their heads, and also spent hours on tasks such as bending pipes, climbing pipes, and solar paneling work. The director gave them information about applying for this trade and what the benefits were. The 17 Ritamen also had the opportunity to meet several Illinois state representatives and state senators that were spending the day there as well. Our St. Rita STEM program will be competing in a STEM competition later this year, which will be sponsored by Local 134 and ECA Chicago, and members of the junior class will be able to visit in the coming months as well. It was a fantastic day for our Ritamen and we are fortunate to be able to provide interesting experiences and opportunities for outside the classroom learning.