Birmingham students matched with local companies for summer apprenticeship program

Families, city councilors and other officials gathered at the Negro Southern League Museum on Thursday afternoon for “Signing Day,” where 20 students were matched with local companies for a seven-week apprenticeship as part of the Birmingham Promise pilot program.

The program, for which $65,000 was approved by the Birmingham City Council on Tuesday, is a part of the larger Birmingham Promise Initiative and aims to help students develop on-the-job skills with a vocational education component in four industries: finance and insurance, healthcare and life sciences, energy and engineering and digital technology.

“The Birmingham Promise is a wonderful opportunity for us to make an investment and down payment on our future by investing in and supporting our youth,” Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said. “This apprenticeship model makes sure every young person has the opportunity to be gainfully employed, learn a skill and that they can choose not to go to college or not go into the military but can go straight into the workforce.”

Woodfin said Birmingham students who pursue college carry, on average, $31,000 in debt and that the city has the 16th highest youth unemployment rate in the U.S.

“We know that the cost of college in Alabama is rising eight times faster than wages and that student loan debt is crippling our families,’’ Woodfin said. “A program like this will help students earn while they learn.’’

The goal of the program is to combine the apprenticeships with college scholarships to develop pathways to jobs through career and technical education, dual enrollment opportunities at Lawson State and Jefferson State community colleges and Birmingham City Schools’ Career Academies.

The city will pay the Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity to provide pay for the students at a rate of $12 per hour, 25 hours per week during the seven-week apprenticeship.

The Birmingham Promise was one of the nine out of over 200 applicants to receive a $150,000 national grant from New America, an education think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Eighty percent of the students in the program are recent high school graduates and others are high school upperclassmen from every high school in Birmingham.

George W. Carver High School graduate Curtis Washington, who plans to study exercise sciences at Alabama State University in the fall, will be doing his apprenticeship with Shipt, an internet-based delivery service headquartered in Birmingham.

“I can gain experience from these different companies so that I can know what I’m doing when I get to college,” Watson said. “It will not go to waste.”

Huffman High School graduate Anna Gregory will be doing her apprenticeship with Alabama Power Co. before studying mechanical engineering at the University of Alabama in the fall. She said she’s been interested in building things since she was a child and would build dollhouses and cars for her dolls.

“It’s a male-dominated field so all the opportunity for people to know who I am and to get into this field is amazing for me," Gregory said. "I’m just really excited I have this opportunity so people now know my name and who I am so they can be on the lookout.”

Final Matches:

  • Alabama Futures Fund: Makaila Gooden
  • Alabama Power: Ana Gregory
  • Altec: Tavaris Beal
  • Baptist Princeton: Antearia Davis
  • BIG Communications: Zemorah Yisrael
  • Blue Cross Blue Shield: Ben Holmes
  • Brasfield and Gorrie: Stacey Foster
  • Encompass Health: Justin Williams
  • HOAR Construction: Tamayia Church
  • Mayer: Ahmya Clifton Blue
  • Pack Health: India Green
  • Protective: Cameron Humes
  • Regions: Brian Thomas
  • Renasant Bank: Deja Janell Jackson
  • Shipt: Curtis Watson
  • Spire: Kalyn Paige
  • St. Vincent’s: Kamil Goodman
  • Theranest: Sydiah Ervin
  • UAB: Makenzie SHahid
  • Vulcan Materials: Russell Allen

In the long term, the Birmingham Promise will seek to provide year-round apprenticeships for high school students and recent graduates, said Josh Carpenter, director of the city’s Office of Innovation and Economic Opportunity.

“A really major priority for us is making sure the students are able to see the opportunity that exists in their own community," said Rachel Harmon, the deputy director of talent development for the Department of Innovation and Economic Opportunity. “The hope is to have really long lasting, sustainable relationships between the students and these companies.”

This story was updated on June 7 at 10:30 a.m. to include the final matches and the New America grant.

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