Local community colleges and HBCU’s receive grants from Delmarva Power

MARYLAND– Local colleges and universities are getting a financial boost from Delmarva Power.

The electric company is providing $400,000 to four community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities.

The money will support scholarships, teacher training, and curriculum development for educating the next generation of the energy workforce. University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Wor-Wic Community College are two of the schools getting some of that funding.

“It can have a huge impact on our students who are getting into the energy field and it’s a huge part of the middle skilled workforce that we have here at Wor-Wic and promote increased workforce in our local economy,” Jessica Hales, Director of Development and Executive Director of the Wor-Wic Foundation, said.

Hales said the money will go to their campaign contribution that’s focused on the impact of developing the generation of the middle skilled workforce. She also said this will allow for at least 20 students to receive a scholarship at Wor-Wic.

Meanwhile at UMES, they have four areas the money will apply to. One, helping students understand cyber security and develop course work that goes along with that. Another area, is in the natural sciences that has to do with climate resilience.

The Social Justice Symposium, an on-going project, is also getting funding. In light of the racial profiling and police conflicts that happened last year, they decided to start this project to bring speakers to campus.

“A lot of our students are first in their family to attend college and they asked us to make sure that we use this money to help those students, whether it’s reimbursement for books or maybe a scholarship,” Bill Robinson, Public Relations Director at UMES, said.

Delmarva Power provided $300,000 in grants to UMES and Delaware State University. In addition to the support for HBCUs, Delmarva has provided to $100,000 to Wor-Wic and Delaware Technical Community College.