Scholarships are available for upcoming short-term training at Wayne Community College.
The college’s Workforce Continuing Education division has Project Skill-UP scholarships for courses to learn or upgrade job skills and acquire in-demand credentials in areas such as welding, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), construction, and computer-integrated machining.
In addition to scholarships, the program provides career assessments and National Career Readiness Certification preparation to students who are unemployed or underemployed and impacted by changes in the tobacco industry or working in agriculture-related fields.
Fall courses will start shortly, so interested persons should contact Project Skill-UP Coordinator Maxine Cooper as soon as possible for more information. She can be reached at (919) 739-6938 or mcooper@waynecc.edu.
The scholarships and other services are made possible by a grant from the NC Tobacco Trust Fund Commission.
Project Skill-UP was piloted in 2006 with a North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund (NCTTF) grant to the N.C. Community College System. The NCTTF has continued to fund the training initiative and Wayne Community College has received those funds in the past and was awarded $15,000 for the current funding cycle.
The goal of Project Skill-UP is to help individuals in North Carolina affected by the changes in the tobacco industry “update” their current skills and provide them with additional marketable skills reflective of fast-growing occupations and/or new industries within their local communities.
The objectives of the project are to provide short-term training programs supporting local workforce needs, develop educational programs supporting diverse utilization of agriculture resources and enterprises, and create education opportunities to assist small farmers in accessing new methods to support business sustainability.
The NC General Assembly created the NC Tobacco Trust Fund Commission in 2000 to lessen the financial impact to farmers and tobacco-related businesses caused by the sharp decline of tobacco in the agricultural economy. The commission’s original funding was established through tobacco industry annual payments as a result of the Master Settlement Agreement. Its current funding comes from a set appropriation of funds. Since 2001, the NCTTF has awarded over 320 grants to public and nonprofit agencies that meet the goals of strengthening the rural and tobacco-dependent economies of North Carolina.
Wayne Community College is a public, learning-centered institution with an open-door admission policy located in Goldsboro, N.C. As it works to develop a highly skilled and competitive workforce, the college serves 12,000 individuals annually as well as businesses, industry, and community organizations with high quality, affordable, accessible learning opportunities, including more than 70 college credit programs. WCC’s mission is to meet the educational, training, and cultural needs of the communities it serves.