Technical Training Aids has been selling career and technical training equipment since 1963. While the technological advances over the last 50+ years are obvious, it can be easy to lose sight of the lives that have been transformed in that time. Our cutting-edge educational and training solutions enable students from a wide variety of backgrounds to improve their job skills and make a better life for themselves and their families. Every once in a while, we try to stop and remember that our company is about so much more than just cool gadgets; our work facilitates changed lives. This has never been more evident than in our work with Kids to Love in Huntsville, Alabama. Kids to Love was founded in 2004 by Lee Marshall to meet the needs of foster children while they wait for a home. They have worked diligently over the last 12 years to help foster children and families with a wide variety of needs, establishing initiatives for drug prevention, parent training, school supplies, and Christmas gifts. They also supply Bibles and raise scholarship money for children in need. When Kids to Love identifies a problem, they do a remarkable job of finding creative ways to solve it.
A Gap in the System
Over time, a significant gap in the foster care system became obvious to Lee Marshall and Kids to Love: each year, many children age out of foster care without having found a permanent family. 75-80% of these children end up in prison. This sobering statistic left us speechless. 3 out of every 4 children who age out of the foster care system are incarcerated. The ramifications of this are devastating. First, the effort that our society puts into helping these children is coming up short. Second, we spend billions of dollars on prisons when we could be funneling that money into programs to prevent incarceration. Finally, there is no simple solution because so many factors contribute to this problem, including a lack of job skills, limited social skills, ignorance of employer expectations, and an absence of role models.
A Possible Solution
It’s easy to feel discouraged and hopeless in the face of this problem. But anyone who has ever met Lee Marshall will tell you that she doesn’t let a little thing like insurmountable odds stop her. She is known for seeing solutions where others see only obstacles, and that mindset gave her a vision for providing life skills for children who age out of the foster system. An idea began to take shape when Lee heard about a Mechatronics training partnership between Motlow College in Lynchburg, Tennessee, and Bridgestone Tires. Bridgestone was in desperate need of technically qualified employees to meet their manufacturing goals, and they provided the resources to set up a training lab through their partnership with Motlow. Students coming out of this training program had a 100% placement rate in manufacturing. North Alabama has a healthy manufacturing sector, and Lee thought that the plan in Lynchburg might contain the first piece of a solution for children aging out of foster care.
Partnerships in Advanced Technical Training and Mechatronics
The first thing Lee did was look for partnerships with local 2- and 4-year colleges. Unfortunately, she found a profound lack of knowledge about advanced manufacturing, and no potential partners who were familiar with Mechatronics. But local industry was desperate for the kind of skilled workers this program could produce. Lee decided that if the traditional education institutions weren’t going to meet this need, she would find a way to raise the necessary funds. Not only did she raise the $300,000+ that would be required to set up a training facility, a local property owner donated the deed to a $1,150,000 building so that the lab could have a permanent home.
The training lab set up by Kids to Love is truly state of the art. Students work directly with a mechatronics training system from Amatrol that integrates with Robotics from Fanuc America. For many students, it’s the first time they’ve ever had this kind of hands-on opportunity. One student exclaimed, “We got to touch equipment on the first day! We have never gotten to touch the equipment before!” The lab has also piqued the interest of local industry partners like Boeing, who is considering using this lab for employee training. This would provide a valuable alternative source of income so that Kids to Love can extend their work. Kids to Love has also opened up their 15-week training program to another group that so often slips through the cracks: disabled veterans.
A Comprehensive Approach
The job training opportunity is a critical part of Kids to Love’s work, but Lee knows that technical skills aren’t the only thing these kids need. Lee met with numerous people around North Alabama to develop a comprehensive plan that included job training for mechatronics, life skills training, and mentorship. This is a remarkable success story, both in the nonprofit sector and in the technical training sector. We are amazed by the work that Kids to Love and Lee Marshall have undertaken, and we are proud to be a part of it. Their story is the best reminder we’ve seen in a long time about the way that technical training products transform lives. We plan to revisit the work they’re doing over the next few months to feature different aspects of this program, so check back here for updates. Would you like to find out more about how TTA can help you move forward with advanced technical training? Contact us today!
Update: Read more about the success of the KTech program now that the first class has completed the program!
