After School All Stars provides children with comprehensive after-school programs that keep children safe and help them succeed in school and life. Heath Strayhan, General Manager at Park Place Premier Collection, is also an Advisory Board Member for After-School All Stars because of the program’s impact on kids in the community:
“In the middle school age group, these children are exposed to many negative influences between the hours of 3 and 6 during the week because they are often home along. ASAS not only occupies their time, but maximizes it by teaching life sills and exposing them to career choice possibilities they did not know existed.
So, when a need for a new after school excursion came up, Heath didn’t hesitate to step up and offer experiencing some our most premier level vehicles and the opportunity to learn about the various careers in automotive.
“It’s a perfect fit. We decided that, as opposed to me speaking at a school, we would immerse them in our dealership environment and introduce them to people who have taken advantage of career opportunities that are available. I also love an excuse to give out free cookies and hot chocolate,” said Strayhan.
The day began with the children arriving at the Premier Collection Service Center off Northwest Highway, where they were able tour the client lounge and get a sneak peek at some our high-performance supercars in the front showroom.
Afterwards, they met with Assistant Service Manager, Sharon Stanley, who explained how integral her role is in ensuring a great client experience. Sharon’s role is to connect the dots between our parts department, Service Technicians, and valuable clients.
Afterwards, the kids ventured into our McLaren, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and Maserati workshops, where they witnessed technicians performing repairs, live. To top it all off, the group of All-Stars also were shown a few of Mr. Earl’s (one of the Premier Technicians) favorite tools, which became a hit with the group.
While walking through each service bay, a few of the kids mentioned how cool it would be to work at Park Place and get to work around such cool cars- and as you can imagine, that just warmed the hearts of our Park Place team members who had the chance to share their story.
Before heading over to the New Car Showroom off Lemmon Avenue, the AS-AS group had the opportunity to meet our Inventory Control Specialist, Niki, who actually received her full-time job after interning with Park Place in High School. Her story is especially meaningful to these kids and was General Manager Heath’s favorite part of the day too:
“My favorite Part of the Day was when Niki told the group a little about her history, how she came to work for us through the internship program, and how vital and important her role is in our organization.”
Fast forward to a small bus trip to the Lemmon Avenue Dealership, the kids were greeted with fresh hot chocolate and cookies to refresh the students before learning all about our premier brands. Malcolm Gage, our New Car Sales Director, ended the day with a short quiz, asking questions like “Where are Bentley’s made?” and let’s just say there wasn’t a shortage of hand raising during this Q&A session.
Tori Schwarzlose, Program Manager at After-School All-Stars shared how important these experiences are to the AS-AS kids:
“Our All-Stars had so much fun learning about new cars and seeing the showroom, but the most impactful part of the field trip was meeting the incredible people that work at Park Place. Each employee got to share about their unique role within Park Place, and it helped expose our All-Stars to career and education paths that they wouldn’t otherwise know. We couldn’t do this work alone, so we are very grateful for our new friends at Park Place and the amazing experience they provided our students!”
Learn more about our community giving or submit a community request by visiting www.ParkPlace.com/Community.