This is an excellent time to make the community and business leaders in your community aware of your SkillsUSA chapter. Request a proclamation from the mayor, city council, board of supervisors or school board, and ask if your local SkillsUSA officers can be present at an upcoming meeting to receive it. Invite local business, community and industry leaders to a chapter meeting to hear a presentation. Or, host an open house to showcase chapter activities and make short presentations in each program. Invite parents, community leaders, business and industry representatives, and middle-school or elementary students who might be interested in technical career paths. Visit a local elementary or middle school and talk about career and technical programs. 

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Have you ever wanted to let your senators, congressional representatives, local state leaders and local media outlets know about SkillsUSA Georgia and career and technical education? The SkillsUSA advocacy site makes it easy by providing direct contacts for your governor, lieutenant governor, state senators and representatives and other officials. You can also write to your U.S. members of Congress using the portal.  

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For example, use the site to request a visit to your state house or Congress to invite elected officials to your state conference or to publicize your upcoming events to the news media. 

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To write to elected officials, go to http://www.cqrcengage.com/skillsusa/?0  and choose "Write to Your State  Legislator  or to Your Members of Congress."  Then fill in your contact information and select the recipients. Create a subject for your letter, type your message or paste in your letter from Microsoft Word, and submit it. 

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To send a press release to the media, select the Media tab at the top of the webpage. Choose the media outlets (you can email up to five outlets at a time) and click on "compose message" and "compose your own letter." You can paste in a prewritten letter from Word here, too. 

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Some templates on the site are already filled in with suggested text, but all can be edited. 

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We encourage you to use these advocacy tools to help raise awareness of SkillsUSA. This is also a great exercise for students. 

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If you have questions, contact Jane Short at 703-737-0612 or jshort@skillsusa.org