Wayne Community College Continuing Education has grant money available to assist students who have been adversely impacted by changes in the tobacco industry.
The college’s Project Skill-UP program provides career assessments, Career Readiness Certification preparation, courses to upgrade or learn new job skills, and financial assistance including tuition and fee waivers for students who are unemployed and underemployed and affected by the decline of the tobacco industry.
Contact Skill-UP Project Coordinator Maxine Cooper at (919) 739-6938 or mcooper@waynecc.edu for more information on the program and qualified courses.
Project Skill-UP was piloted in 2006 with a N.C. 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 a portion of those funds each year, including $15,000 for the past 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 1) develop and implement outreach and recruitment activities to individuals, communities, businesses, and/or agencies that have been adversely impacted by the changes in the tobacco industry; 2) provide skills assessment and short-term occupational skills training to affected workers; and 3) when applicable, provide financial assistance to students to assist in meeting their educational goals.
The NCTTF was established to assist tobacco farmers, tobacco quota holders, persons engaged in tobacco-related businesses, individuals displaced from tobacco-related employment, and tobacco product component businesses in North Carolina by funding programs that support, foster, encourage, and facilitate a strong agricultural economy in this state or otherwise address needs in the tobacco-related segment of the state’s economy.
Wayne Community College is a public, associate degree-granting college with an open-door admission policy located in Goldsboro, N.C. As it works to develop a highly skilled and competitive workforce, it serves 14,000 individuals annually as well as businesses, industry and community organizations with high quality, affordable, accessible learning opportunities, including more than 90 college credit programs.