 Tonight, we finish up our three-part series on the problems facing the workforce in rural communities. In our third and final report, we take a look at perhaps the most important part of the series, which is the solution to the workforce shortage. Our Logan Gaye is with us now in our Brainerd studio with more. Logan? Yes, Dennis. Well, the workforce shortage may seem like an overwhelming challenge for the Brainer Lakes region, but business leaders are already working on the solution, and you may be surprised about what it is. When it comes to finding a solution for the workforce shortage, experts have set their eyes on the future. The Bridges Academies and Workplace Connection was created to bridge the workforce gap. What we do is we use high school curriculum to put certain courses together that lead to a specific career. Rural communities like Brainerd are facing a mass exodus of their best and brightest who are choosing to take their talents elsewhere. Who tends to stay around our communities are students who might be in the lowest 50th percentile of our graduating classes. Experts say that the key to ending the workforce shortage lies with that lowest 50th percentile. When we think about developing a workforce, we really need to think about how do we develop the skills in that lowest percentile of academic achievement students so that they can have the skills that fill many of our trades, manufacturing jobs, caregiving jobs, et cetera, in our community. And that is where Bridges come in. A massive amount of communities, a massive amount of businesses in the Chamber of Commerce at the time, looking at how do we really reach out and start to get the business involved and get enough kids, we say go big or go home, because we needed to start that massive kid. So what we really kicked off was our job shadows. The Bridges Academies and Workplace Connection currently does 1,000 job shadows each year and partners with 27 high schools located in central Minnesota. Each academy course basically does three things. It obviously teaches the skills needed for a career, but it also emphasizes employability skills in those courses. For example, working in teams, making oral presentations. One of Bridges most successful events is their Career Exploration Day. At the Career Exploration Day, I think what's really interesting is we have over 200 jobs that we share with students. It's an exciting four hours to really open up their brains, their ideas to really look at a career. The Career Exploration Day gives students a way to discover what's important to them when they make the decision to apply for a job. What I want to go for is like video game designing, because I've always loved math and video games, and I'm both decent at it, so I thought that I could go into that because it's fun and I'm good at it. I think those are the two most important things, is that you're good at it and then it's fun to do. And the Bridges Day camps are getting the students college ready. One of our one day camps are taking a group of kids to a camp for a day and working on their own personal skills, like for example to challenge them. Our goal is to have kids go on to further their education. And the Bridges Academy's and Workplace Connection, it's already planning for their next Career Exploration Day, which is scheduled to be on March 10th. Alright, thank you very much Logan, for those series of reports from the Brainerd Lakes Area Studio, very, very informative. Now the Bridges Academy's newest initiatives located on their website are making it even easier for young people to find jobs and opportunities that pertain to them. And just a reminder, if you missed any portion of this three-part series, you can find them all on our website, LakelandNews.org. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.