MOUNT VERNON — The Gene Haas Foundation awarded the Knox County Career Center a $25,000 grant to support scholarships, along with additional authorized uses of the grant funds.
Scholarships are to be awarded to students who are currently enrolled or will be enrolling in a CNC training or engineering program with an emphasis on CNC technology and
designed for manufacturability. Credit and non-credit training classes are eligible.
The scholarship recipients will be determined by the program instructor or an advisory committee that includes the program instructor.
There are also additional authorized uses for these grand funds.
A “toolkit” required to become a CNC machinist, which may include small hand tools like micrometers, calipers, and safety gear, may be purchased by the school and then given to the students as a gift. The students will retain the tools after completing their program.
Up to $3,000 per competition type may be used to participate in the SkillsUSA-CNC or ProjectMFG-CNC competition.
Tuition may be provided for a student to attend a manufacturing-related training, summer camp, boot camp, or related CNC training at a career center or community college to introduce students to manufacturing programs or careers. Up to $1,500 of these funds (per attendee) may be used for the CNC educator(s) and/or engineering instructor(s) to attend the 19th Annual HTEC conference on July 27-30.
“We are honored as a program and a school to be awarded this grant,” Joe LaFevre, precision machining instructor at KCCC, said. “It is continually clear that Haas Automation works very hard to impact students around our country, and we are just beyond grateful for this grant.”