A gift from the Gene Haas Foundation is helping 15 Wayne Community College students.

The $20,000 grant is providing scholarships for tuition, books, and small personal tools for students in the college’s Computer-Integrated Machining program.

Recipients are
Julia Bentley, Shelby Bigham, Kaitlyn Brubaker, Jonathan Doughty, Ethan Douglas, Han Foo, De’Angelo Freeman, Juan Loy, and Joshua Morgan of Goldsboro;
Eric Esparza-Perez and David Jackson of Mount Olive;
Michael Logan and Kevin Spencer-Smith of Pikeville;
Aaron Howell of Stantonsburg; and
Jason Conklin of Louisburg.

Program instructors Bailee Gilbert and David Meek expressed their appreciation for the grant.

“It has provided us with a great opportunity to reach students and to serve the local manufacturing community with quality instruction,” said Meek.

“Having the resources to provide potential students with even a small amount of scholarship money can sometimes be the deciding factor in education or not,” he said. “Having received the grant for two consecutive years, Wayne Community College, through the Applied Technologies Division, was able to provide $32,000 in scholarship funds.”

Freeman said he was grateful for the scholarship. “I would have had major stress without it,” the student commented.

WCC offers an associate degree, diploma, and several certificates in Computer-Integrated Machining. The WCC degree transfers into East Carolina University’s Industrial Technology bachelor’s degree program.