T-R FILE PHOTO Tyler Peschong of State Farm Insurance spoke to roughly 25 attendees about the financial benefits of living in the community during “Why Marshalltown” event at Wayward Social last summer. The first event of the 2024 series, which is geared at interns and new employees, is set for May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Orpheum’s Black Box Theater.

The Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce in partner with its Workforce Program Events will again host a series of programs called “Why Marshalltown” aimed at summer interns, new hires and anyone new to town that wants to learn more about Marshalltown and its amenities. Free and open to the public, but requires registration, the first one will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 21 in the Orpheum’s Black Box Theater. It is called Lunch & Learn: Networking 101 with guest speaker Danny Beyer.

“We will provide lunch and the chance to learn from our speaker,” said Workforce Director Kate Bowermaster. “We want people to get to know other professionals throughout Marshalltown, but also get to know the town itself and what we have to offer.”

The next event on June 12 will be a new addition: a scavenger hunt. Participants will meet at the Drills sculpture outside the MHS Roundhouse, starting at 1 p.m. People will be put into teams and receive a clue.

“Based off of that, they will have to figure out where the next clue is and drive to that location,” she said. “They will just continue doing that until they get to the very end of it. We are going to try to put people together with someone that they don’t work with so they can get to know other people.”

That will conclude by 4 p.m. Bowermaster noted that the scavenger hunt idea came from Chamber President & CEO John Hall.

“I had the opportunity to participate in Leadership Iowa last year and the very first session we were divided into groups to do a sort of community scavenger hunt,” he said. “The idea was that we were able to experience so many things within the community, in this case Jefferson, in a really short amount of time while also developing relationships with a new group of people. As we were talking about how to engage summer interns and making sure they are seeing some of the incredible facets of our community, we thought this might be a fun, creative and engaging way to get them out there. We know it’s a lot of time to ask our employers to dedicate, but if it helps one more intern a year say yes to an opportunity here in Marshalltown, helps someone see themselves living here in the future, and helps to retain those folks for one more year, that’s time well spent on workforce development.”

The third event — Cocktails & Mocktails — will be held July 10 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Wayward Social.

“It is just an after hours networking event to kind of end the summer for all the interns,” she added. “And there will be bowling.”

This is Bowermaster’s first year coordinating Why Marshalltown.

“The Chamber is very excited to be bringing this program back and to be connecting with all of the interns in Marshalltown for the summer,” she said. “We hope that they have a great time with their employer during the day, and see that Marshalltown has a lot to offer and maybe they want to come back long-term after they’re done with college.”

Please register for the events online at: www.marshalltown.org/why-marshalltown/. For more information, she may be reached at: 641-753-6645 and kbowermaster@marshalltown.org.