COLORADO SPRINGS — Today, Pikes Peak Business and Education Alliance (PPBEA) celebrating 48 high school interns and 19 local business in Southern Colorado.

The mission of PPBEA to improve the Pikes Peak regions future workforce and talent pipeline. For the summer, the alliance helped connect high school students with internship opportunities.

Pikes Peak Workforce Center said there are many people looking for jobs right now.

“We have the most generations in the workforce, Generation Z and our young adults really need to know what career pathways are out there,” said Erica Romero, Pikes Peak Workforce Center Business Relations Manager. “They’re not just looking for jobs their looking for careers and their looking at different opportunities.”

For business like Luchals, Chantale Lucas said she is sharing life and work skills to interns.

“It’s very important that we incorporate some type of life skills in their life. Because not a lot of people are able to get that as youth, said Lucas. “If we can do something by helping them get some type of job skill or something under their belt…it makes for a better future, you know?”

Gabrielle Moore held a marketing and social media summer internship with PPBEA.

“My favorite part was probably working with people who are experts in their craft and were willing to give me constructive criticism and really help me improve,” said Moore. “They were so dedicated to helping me in any products I wanted to pursue, and I was just so lucky to work with them.”

Chandler Wilburn was another intern working for Microchip Technology.

Those who trained me, all my mentors there were absolutely wonderful to work with,” said Wilburn. “They were just very kind to me, very understanding, and really just spent a lot of their a lot of their own time and energy to actually train me.”

Wilburn said his internship helped confirm his career path.

“I got a lot of confirmation for that sentiment that I had from doing this workforce experience,” said Wilburn.

Lucas said offering work experience also helps the community.

“Not only are we cultivating you as a person, as a professional, but you’re able to also cultivate others because you are cultivated and so we passed that down,” said Lucas. “That’s what I want to do. I want to leave the world better than I left it.”