Pink Hard Hats Sponsor

The curriculum for the Pink Hard Hats initiative is modeled after Polished Pebbles’ successful career readiness and mentoring initiatives which include a career readiness curriculum, job shadows, guest panels, work-study programs, and mentorship with professional leaders from a variety of industries. The Pink Hard Hats curriculum is centered around work-based learning and connecting social-emotional learning and leadership development in the classroom to the trades and career opportunities within the industry.

• The application of skills learned and earned in a real world setting
• A clearer connection between classroom learning and career success
• Expanding, refining, and deepening their skill sets to support their career interest
• Professional mentorship and the ability to build a network of support for their future aspirations
• Job shadows, site visits, and front-line knowledge of trade industry
• Work-study and career exploration opportunities with industry partners

Polished Pebbles’ Pink Hard Hats program is solving a growing shortage of qualified employees to take on high paying and stable trade jobs in our country’s workforce, including the jobs our society relies on for infrastructure, construction, and repairs. Alternative instructional models at trade schools across the country are training women to fill in the gap and keep our city’s and our nation’s infrastructure running smoothly. Given the incredible demand for new workers in a high-paying, stable industry, Polished Pebbles is working to support girls’ success in the trades and partner with industry leaders to close gender pay gaps and gender leadership gaps and increase female representation in these industries.

In 2019, Polished Pebbles partnered with Congresswoman Robin Kelly, Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls, to host our first Black Women and Girls in Trades discussion for over 50 top leading women from various firms and companies in the trades, construction, and manufacturing industries. Today, Polished Pebbles has hosted over twenty Pink Hard Hats career events and panels at our schools through our network of leading women professionals and the firms and companies they represent. Our mission is to continue to offer Pink Hard Hats programming at each of our 25+ school sites each year either through a virtual or in-person career panel, job shadow, or work-study program. Polished Pebbles is excited to be offering our first Pink Hard Hats Internships taking place in Summer 2021.

Some of our partners for this initiative include Turner Construction, Trice Construction Company, Milhouse Engineering & Construction, Mechanical Contractors Association of Chicago, Chicago Women in Trades, She Builds, Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, The Walsh Group, Leopardo Companies, and Horizon Contractors, Inc.