The Marshall County Commissioners were presented with a funding request from Greg Hildebrand and Allie Shook from the Marshall County Lifelong Learning Network.
Hildebrand reminded the commissioners that they appeared before them in a previous meeting to inform them about an initiative for a Career Innovation Center. He said that process is moving forward.
“It would be something that would improve career technical education opportunities here in the county,” explained Hildebrand. “We know you are also weighing and allocating money from APRA (American Rescue Plan Act). Part of our READI grant would require a local match and we’d appreciate if you would consider us for about $2 million.”
Shook said the Career Innovation Center will assist high school students in CTE programming with space to host the classes and more opportunities.
“In Marshall County, we have hundreds of kids in CTE programs which is fantastic, and we are at or over capacity in Welding. We are at or over capacity in Building Trades, and we are over capacity in Digital Manufacturing, which is the advanced manufacturing, or smart technology – Smart Manufacturing 4.0 is what they call that.”
Not only would the center assist students, but Shook noted it would be open to continue to train the workforce.
Shook continued, “We would have it open every evening for opportunities for our workforce to bring in their employees to upskill them in whatever way they would like. We’re also offering classes through something like Purdue MEP who does a lot of courses that could utilize this space. We could talk to Ivy Tech, we can talk to Purdue Polytechnic and some of those other schools that could come in and do some training for us.”
Hildebrand said having a Marshall County facility would accommodate Marshall County students who would otherwise have to travel to Knox to take classes, and the Marshall County workforce seeking additional training.
Shook hopes that the Lifelong Learning Network can apply for the READI grant, but they need to find the $2 million in matching funds. However, Hildebrand said whether or not the grant is awarded, the Career Innovation Center will move forward as he stressed it is needed in the community.
The commissioners took the request under consideration.
