Across the country Thursday moms, dads and even some grandparents brought kids into work to celebrate Take Your Daugthers and Sons to Work day. Florida’s capital city got in on the fun, too.
The Capitol building’s observation deck is buzzing Thursday morning as state jobs czar Cissy Proctor tries to settle down a couple dozen kids long enough to run through some prepared remarks—about a hundred more are milling around checking out the booths.
“I hope that all of you find something cool that you’ve never seen before that maybe you’ll want to do when you grow up if you haven’t already decided,” she says with a broad grin.
This is Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day at the state Capitol. The holiday, begun in the early 1990s, was devised as a way to get young girls excited about careers where women aren’t well represented. In 2003 organizers officially expanded the day to include boys as well.
Up on the 22nd floor, agencies have set up interactive booths with robots, magnets, monopoly—even Smokey Bear is milling around.
“So I’ll tell you now, some of these work and some of these don’t,” Carlos Villa from the National High Magnetic Lab says.
He’s showing off a magnetic launcher. There’s a metallic cylinder standing about a foot tall with an electromagnet at its base. Villa puts rings of different materials on the cylinder and then presses a button to turn it on, sending the rings flying.
“It depends on how well it conducts, how well it works,” he explains to crowd of wide eyed kids.
Meanwhile at the Tallahassee Fire Department training facility across town, the activities are a bit more hands on.
Sixth grader Piper Greisl—along with her sister Mallory, a fourth grader, and her brother Finn are getting ready to head into the training tower.
“We’ll get hooked up to these vest things,” she explains, “and they’ll lower us down with some pretty thick cords and we’ll rappel down the building wall.”
The tower stretches five stories up, but Piper’s a natural. Her dad Jason Greisl is a captain with the fire department, and he’s brought them out the past few years running.
But Trevino Haynes’ three girls aren’t quite as prepared.
“No this is actually a surprise to them,” he says laughing, “They didn’t know we were coming here today.”
Haynes does Urban Search and Rescue and he’s been with the fire department for about six years. His daughter Jasmine says she didn’t realize she’d be leaving school.
“I was a little—well at first, I didn’t know why he was there,” she says, “I was kind of surprised and then we got here and I just, y’know, got a little shocked.”
Jasmine is nervous but excited. Her sisters Kassidy and Alyssa, the youngest, aren’t looking forward to jumping out a window, but they go ahead with it anyway. All three make it down just fine.
But Kassidy won’t be trying it again anytime soon. Back on solid ground she has only one word to describe it: horrible.
