By Emma Rausch
emma@thepaperofwabash.com
WABASH COUNTY, Ind. – Wabash County residents interested in earning certified machinist, welders or industrial maintenance certificates should contact the Economic Development Group (EDG) of Wabash County now, according to Lori Shipman, of Lori Shipman Consulting LLC.
Within the next year, Wabash County’s EDG in partnership with Kosciusko and Huntington counties’ economic development groups will receive a Community Development Block Grant through the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA) to distribute to its area locals, Shipman, the grant’s administrator, told The Paper of Wabash County.
On Tuesday, Jan. 17, Shipman met with Wabash County Commissioners and Economic Development Group of Wabash County (EDG) to provide an update on the grant’s progress.
“It’s a workforce development grant,” she said. “The purpose for this grant is to help people who are pretty specifically, I’d say, under employed and unemployed, people who have a lot of those soft skills already where they show up to work every day, they’re on time, they have what it takes to be a good employee, they just are lacking a certification to get a high wage job.
“So this grant is going to focus on helping people to get certified to be machinists, get certification welding or in industrial maintenance because those are large need areas for companies within the three county areas that the program is going to take place.”
In total, the grant amounts to $375,000, which will all go to serve Wabash, Huntington and Kosciusko County residents, according to Shipman.
“Across the three counties, $375,000 will be invested in workforce training,” she said. “$250,000 is coming from state CDBG funds.”
The remaining $125,000 “were other dollars that were brought to match the program … from between all the partners that came into the project,” she added.
For more information on the grant and how to apply, contact the Economic Development Group of Wabash County at 260-563-5258 or WorkOne Northeast, located at 1143 Cass St. in Wabash, at 260-563-8421.