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$954K Grant Enables Start-up of Lawrence Mercer Manufacturing Workforce Development Organization

YOUNGSTOWN – The Ohio-Penn Interstate Regional Collaboration received a $954,708 grant from the U.S. Department of Labor in September, which will be used in large part to build out a workforce development coalition serving Lawrence and Mercer County manufacturers. The funding is part of the Workforce Opportunity for Rural Communities (WORC) initiative, which specifically engages local communities in the Appalachian region to develop strategies to prepare workers for good jobs in high-demand industries. “Manufacturers and jobseekers on both sides of the border will ultimately be the beneficiaries of this significant grant funding,” said Chris Becker, President, G.W. Becker Crane. “A…


Riv-Ell Program Forges Ahead

(Ellwood City, PA) Reflected points of light slide across white hard hats as heads turn left and right. Their questions answered, their curiosity satisfied, the high school seniors glance down to follow one another’s footsteps to be taken between the yellow stripes on the deck of a hometown manufacturer, a facility many students visited for the first time through the 2022-2023 Riv-Ell Entrepreneurship Program. After a two-year pause with regard to COVID-19, the program that blends classroom learning with real-world experience has attracted its largest number of students seeking free, transferrable credits to Butler County Community College or to the…