Every Tuesday, a busload of sophomores and juniors from eight high schools in Yonkers heads to the Ridge Hill shopping mall ”“ not to splurge on their allowance money, but to learn how to be astute sales associates, crafty chefs and upstanding security guards.
Ridge Hill Academy, a pilot program that launched in the spring, engages students with business owners and mall staff who provide insight into the world of retail. The program, which is funded by a $100,000 grant from mall owners Forest City Ratner Cos. to the nonprofit Yonkers Partners in Education (YPIE), enrolls 25 high school students who are highly interested in pursuing a career in retail. The fall program, which began Oct. 15, is divided into eight workshops held at the mall including seminars on restaurant management with Cheesecake Factory and Frannie”™s Goodie Shop and theater management with Showcase Cinema de Lux. Newly participating this year are Brooks Brothers Flatiron Shop and LA Fitness.
The workshops range from tours of the kitchen and machinery to testing out the equipment in the fitness center. LA Fitness manager Alex Aponte said he plans to give the students a fitness test when they visit him Nov. 19.
One student who graduated from Ridge Hill Academy in the spring said she learned about the behind-the-scenes work that takes place in retail. She mentioned a particularly eye opening experience at Lord and Taylor.
“There were a lot of things I didn”™t know happened at Lord and Taylor,” said Stacy Fernandez, an 11th-grader at Yonkers High School who is interested in fashion.
“For example, I didn”™t know one person chooses the way the mannequins are set up. We were also able to see what goes into getting the inventory and what happens if something doesn”™t get sold or runs out.”
After graduating from the program, Fernandez learned about an intensive summer camp program for fashion through the YPIE network. After spending a week in Manhattan learning about fashion and marketing, Fernandez received a job offer at Ridge Hill.
“Miss Ellen Cutler Levy, through the Yonkers Partners in Education and through Ridge Hill, was able to get me a job at South Moon Under, which was a fantastic opportunity,” Fernandez said. She added that Cutler Levy knew about Fernandez”™s interest in fashion through her involvement in the academy program and asked for her resume to send to a manager.
Although Fernandez quit her job because of school, she tags along with the new batch of students in the academy and encourages them to take advantage of the program.
“I hope to help the new students take this opportunity to expand their horizons and learn about something they may never have known they were passionate about,” said Fernandez, who plans to apply as a communications major at Barnard, Columbia, Cornell, NYU, Fordham and Vassar colleges next year.
The idea behind equipping students with career skills through the academy started with Geraldine Brown, the former marketing director at Ridge Hill. She had been putting together lifestyle workshops for young people, so they can meet, network with each other and create a strategic vision for their future. Along the way, she met Wendy R. Nadel, executive director of YPIE, who invited Brown to speak at a college workshop.
“After I had that conversation with her, I saw a job posting at Ridge Hill, so I ended up being in charge of marketing at the mall and kept in contact with Wendy,” Brown said. “That”™s where the idea of exposing the kids to all facets of retail from restaurants, mom-and-pop shops and movie theaters to major department stores, grocers and medical centers stemmed from.”
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