Last summer Blue Ridge Community College and Waynesboro High School partnered to offer a Summer Workforce Academy, providing workforce training for qualifying graduates.
Students experienced CORE Craft Safety Credential, OSHA 10, Heavy Equipment Operator (HEO) and Forklift. The success of the project resulted in all participants meeting with employers and receiving job offers at its conclusion.
For summer 2025, BRCC’s Summer Workforce Academy is growing, and will include Staunton High School graduates.
“I am so excited to expand the program and offer some additional classes in collaboration with Staunton High School. With the addition of a standalone forklift class, welding, and patient service representative, we will be able to serve even more newly graduated individuals and help prepare them to enter the ‘real world’ with skills, certifications, and the confidence to be successful,” said WHS Career Coach Beth Burdick.
The Summer Workforce Academy programs will be held at Staunton High School, with the exception of Welding, which will be hosted at the BRCC Welding Facility in Mt. Crawford. The post-secondary opportunity that Staunton and Waynesboro are offering to recent graduates is unique to the area.
Training programs include:
HEO – learn to operate and maintain heavy machinery and equipment used in construction, mining, and other industries.
Welding – Welders, cutters, solderers and brazers use hand-held or remotely controlled equipment to join, repair, or cut metal parts and products.
Patient Services Representative – learn routine clerical and organizational tasks, including how to arrange files, prepare documents, schedule appointments, and support other staff.
Forklift – hands-on training on sit down electric and propane forklifts.
OSHA 10 – teaches workplace safety along with workers’ rights and responsibilities.
CORE Craft Safety – serves as the foundation for trade training programs, focusing on basic safety, construction math, hand tools, power tools material handling, communication and an OSHA 10 for construction certificate.
The participating school divisions are working together to help eliminate financial and transportation barriers,
and make the program more accessible to newly-graduated high school students. Transportation will be provided to the participants.
The program will be funded through state programs:
Fast Forward – a grant program that supports training in high-need industries in Virginia covers 2/3 of students’ tuition, and is available to most Virginia residents starting from high school seniors to adult students.
G3 – a program that covers the remaining 1/3 of tuition for students from households with an income less than 400 percent of the poverty level (currently $124,800 for a family of four).
Most students will pay nothing for the training, after use of the two state funding programs. Waynesboro and Staunton high school graduates should contact their high school career coach for more information.
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Rebecca Barnabi
