SANFORD - Eight individuals recently received their certificates from the first Forklift Fundamentals and Job Readiness Boot Camp at Central Carolina Community College.

This course taught students to operate both a stand-up and sit-down forklift in a safe, efficient manner. Students participated in machine maintenance, warehouse picking, travel, placing and loading simulations.

Additionally, this course was offered in conjunction with an employment readiness bootcamp where students learned economic literacy, resume prep and interview skills, and the soft skills essential for on-the-job interactions.

Tuition and allowance were provided by the CCCC Foundation through the Building Bridges: A Food Bank Workforce Development Scholarship, which was created through a grant/donation from the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. Food boxes were provided to each participant by the Food Bank.

Greg Singleton, CCCC Dean - Programs, Workforce Development & Continuing Education, said that he and Emily Kraft, Director of Outreach & Community Support of the Food Bank, had an idea to "create a program that would provide a hand-up for the unemployed, under employed, and justice involved populations. A program that would educate, train for the workforce, and remove barriers that often get in the way of one's ability to succeed.

"What started as an idea became an awesome collective body of work between numerous people here at CCCC and the Food Bank," said Mr. Singleton. "We are off to a great start with many more lives to impact positively. ... This program - while educating -- also helps with removing barriers that often gets in the way of their ability to thrive."

Marica Tedder, Workforce Development Program Manager for the Food Bank, said: "We believe in not just handing food to people. That we should look at the full person. And so when we created our last strategic plan at the Food Bank, having a program that was workforce development that could not only maybe serve as a pipeline to fill some high turnover jobs in our organization but also give folks opportunity to follow their dreams was important to us. ... We're really grateful to see what has been created here."

Emily Kraft, Director of Outreach & Community Support for the Food Bank, said: This program - we're super excited about it. At the Food Bank, we want to expand our reach, we want to support the community, we want to meet people where they are, we want to have individuals be able to become self-sufficient members of society, and we think this workforce development program is capable of doing that."

Also attending the graduation event were Jennifer Byerly of Pentair, Christina Piard of Wolfspeed, and Dreama Pilson of CTI Systems, who worked with students in their interview skills.

Learn more about CCCC's Job Readiness Boot Camp opportunities by contacting CCCC Human Resources Development Coordinator Malinda Marsh at mmarsh@cccc.edu or call (919) 777-7721.