What is the community investment program??
We have implemented a community investment program called "Training and Trades". The goal of this program is to invest in the community by teaching our scholars financial literacy, hiring processes, and employability skills; hire scholars for paid internships; recruit businesses to hire scholars full-time; conduct signing days for scholars who are hired full-time. This is all possible because of a grant that we received from United Way of Lake/Sumter counties.
In the first year of our program, five students were trained, hired, and transported to businesses in Lake and Sumter counties. We partnered with Galaxy Home Solutions, Carpet Depot, Cutt'n Up, and Life Style Solutions to train and hire scholars of Sumter PREP Academy to work for their businesses. Career Source will also offer paid summer internships to students who work for companies in the summer.
During our second year, our enrollment increased to ten scholars. We partnered with Galaxy Home Solutions, Life Style Solutions, Electric Supply, Wildwood Youth Center, and the City of Bushnell. We also had our first "Signing Day" on July 25, 2019. Electric Supply has hired our scholar full time and enrolled the scholar in their electrician program!
We are currently hosting our third year of internships. Stay tuned for the great news coming from the third year of this program.
Our future plans: We will partner with the Florida Department of Education Vocational rehabilitation office and the various community businesses and leaders to offer Job skills training at Sumter P.R.E.P to empower our scholars to be successful in life after graduation.