April 15, 2002 -- The Graphic Arts Education and Research Foundation has begun distribution of curriculum materials and information about the industry to 65,000 high school teachers and guidance counselors. The program, MAKE YOUR MARKSM in Graphic Communications, has the potential to reach more than 6 million high school students nationwide. “The Foundation’s goal in the MAKE YOUR MARK campaign is to raise awareness of our industry in the next generation of workers by putting colorful information about exciting career opportunities directly into their hands and the hands of people who influence their career decisions – parents, teachers and guidance counselors,” said GAERF Chairman J. Kenneth Garner, President of United Litho, Ashburn, Virginia. The MAKE YOUR MARK kits include teachers’ curriculum and counselors’ guides, posters, a take-home brochure for students and follow-up surveys for students and teachers, as well as directions to the industry education web site Graphic Comm Central at http://teched.vt.edu/gcc. The kits will be distributed to teachers in graphic design, technology education/printing, journalism and yearbook production, as well as career and vocational guidance counselors at 32,000 high schools. Files of the three MAKE YOUR MARK posters and the student brochure will be posted in a special section of the Graphic Comm Central web site for free download and use by industry organizations in their efforts to promote industry careers. Kit samples may be obtained from the Foundation, and GAERF will also accept the names of teachers and counselors to be added to the distribution list. “MAKE YOUR MARK is the culmination of four years of work by the Foundation to address the issue of finding and recruiting skilled workers for the industry,” Garner said. “We began with research into critical issues facing the industry and how young people make career decisions. We then commissioned LearningWorks, a full-service educational marketing agency, to develop customized curriculum materials incorporating the research findings and a distribution database.