4-H Education Center at Auerfarm’s Growing Opportunities workforce training (GO) program was generously awarded a Community Project (CP) Funding/Congressional Directed Spending grant funds of $204,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)
The. $204,000 funding was appropriated, or Congressionally Directed, under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 to Auerfarm “for workforce development for students with disabilities”.The DOL provides these funds in accordance with the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) under Section 169(c).
The Community Project (CP) Funding/Congressional Directed Spending funds will ensure continuous GO program workforce training for high school special needs students with industry skill training in agriculture, facilities management, hospitality, and food service. The CP DOL funding provides significant support to the Auerfarm workforce program to deliver industry and reinforce power skills to students ages (18-22) increasing their hire-ability and independent success after graduation. An additional component of the program is educating local employers and farmers on the benefits of hiring people with special needs and disabilities.
On Tuesday, August 1, 2023 Senator Blumenthal took time out of his busy schedule to tour the Auerfarm campus and meet with the GO program’s students, job coaches, and mentors and Auerfarm staff and board of directors. The funding was congressionally directed through the Connecticut offices of Senator Richard Blumenthal and Senator Chris Murphy.
The GO program at Auerfarm is successfully based on successful school system partnerships. With the help of the federal CP DOL funding, the Auerfarm GO program will continue to operate during the school-year program along with its seven-week summer program. The continual all-year career-oriented training includes, hands-on instruction, certificate preparations within the industries of agriculture, hospitality, food service, and facility maintenance as well as interactions with industry professionals from the community.
Graduating from high school and being on the path of independence is both an exhilarating and anxious experience for students and their families. Many students have dreams and aspirations of what career paths they want to go down, and what they are interested in. Students with special needs/disabilities have those same dreams and aspirations. However, when students with special needs/disabilities and their parents consider what will happen next, the possibility of college and being employed independently is often not promoted as a viable option. Auerfarm’s GO program provides students with marketable skills to land meaningful employment.
Research shows that only one in five working-age individuals with a disability are successfully employed. Additionally, a study conducted by Accenture found that only 29% of Americans with a disability between ages 16 and 64 were employed compared to 75% of non-disabled Americans in the same age bracket. The underemployment of individuals with disabilities has a debilitating financial and emotional effect on families in the United States.
Auerfarm is open to the public daily from 7am – 7pm. Auerfarm invites you to come visit the animals, the gardens, walk our trails, pick blueberries, and enjoy all that the 120-acres has to offer. For more information on educational programs, events, volunteerism, and corporate sponsorships, please visit www.auerfarm.org or call 860.242.7144. Auerfarm is located at 158 Auer Farm Road in Bloomfield, CT.