Skillmation presented its fourth-annual Howard Learned Award to Port Townsend School District counselors Kirsten Bledsoe and Emily Eldridge on June 6.

Skillmation, which promotes the support of youth and mentors in the community, named their award after Learned, a Skillmation mentor who’s guided students from elementary school on up to high school, as a volunteer.

“He exemplifies why this award is given, every year, to a member of the school community who has expanded that community beyond school walls,” Skillmation board member Martha Trollin said. “Howard has really deep roots and knowledge of this place, and also constantly welcomes new people and new ideas into his home community.”

Learned presented his namesake award to Bledsoe and Eldridge for working with Skillmation members Norm Tonina, David Rinn and Suzanne Ward, all post-high school planning mentors, to help coach students looking for college opportunities.

“Each of you have given these mentors access to information and tools you use, and the platforms and information that students use, allowing everyone to speak the same language,” said Trollin, who explained that the guidance counselors and mentors piloted a five-session in-school seminar for 25 second-semester juniors.

Trollin elaborated that this series is designed to help students not only research a broad array of post-graduation opportunities, but also a number of avenues to fund those future aspirations, whether their goals are two-or-four-year colleges, trades or entering the workforce.

“The seminar got rave reviews from the first 25 students  and they even gave it the name ‘Future Finder,” Trollin told Bledsoe and Eldridge, whose prizes were a plaque and gift certificate to the Finistère restaurant in uptown Port Townsend. “It would not have happened without your assistance.”

Trollin later told The Leader that one of the five sessions was a career panel, consisting of careers chosen by the students themselves, and the students’ summer homework is to write their college essays, “if college is on their plate,” after which Tonina and Rinn plan to meet with the students in the first semester of their senior year, to check up on how they’re doing and what help they might need.

“Skillmation believes that this program will grow,” Trollin said. “This pilot has been a huge success, both in filling a need, from time constraints on guidance counselors, and for helping students research vast amounts of available information and options.”