Largest ever grant to Maine community colleges will provide free job training

SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine — The Harold Alfond Foundation is donating $75.5 million to Maine’s Community College System to support short-term workforce training programs over the next five years, marking the largest single grant the system has ever received.

The donation, which was announced Thursday afternoon, follows two previous Alfond Foundation grants of $3.6 million in 2018 and $15.5 million in 2021, bringing the total up to $94.6 million for workforce development programs throughout the system.

“This is truly a transformational investment that will directly benefit Mainers and Maine businesses across the state,” said David Daigler, president of the Maine Community College System. “Maine faces persistent workforce shortages across all industries and age groups, and employers are desperate for skilled workers, fast.”

One of the previous Alfond grants, combined with $35 million in pandemic relief funds from the state, launched the system’s Harold Alfond Center for the Advancement of Maine’s Workforce, located in Augusta. The center works closely with Maine businesses, helping recruit and train new workers for entry-level jobs, as well as upgrading the skills of existing employees and offering scholarships for associate degrees.

Most programs are completely free to students, with either Alfond grants or employers picking up the tab.

The short-term classes offered through the Alfond Center last anywhere from one day to a year. Since 2022, more than 26,000 students have taken classes through the center. With the new grant, it hopes to boost that number to 70,000 by 2030.

“We want to give anyone who is looking for training, at any point in their working life, the opportunity to learn new skills,” said Dan Belyea, chief workforce development officer for the community college system and the director of the Alfond Center.

Arianna Bedolla took a free introduction to marine drafting course offered by Bath Iron Works and the center in 2021, when she was 24 years old. The intensive three-week course centered on math skills, the history of shipbuilding and how to operate drafting software.

“On the last day they gave each student a job interview,” Bedolla said. “They hired me, and I flourished from there.”

Since then, she’s worked at BIW’s Brunswick design facility and is halfway through an apprenticeship program in which she’ll earn an associate degree from Maine Maritime Academy.

Bedolla, now 27, said she’s grateful for the opportunity.

“Before, I was basically working retail and odd jobs. It wasn’t a career.” she said. “Who knew I’d have a career in marine design — but here I am.”

On Thursday afternoon, phlebotomy students Xeufeng Wei and Kristina Walker practiced drawing blood from each other’s fingers at Southern Maine Community College, under the watchful eye of instructor Steve Winger of NorDx, a laboratory division of MaineHealth.

Since 2019, the short-term phlebotomy program has trained more than 450 students.

Walker said she decided to take the class because she’d worked at a lab in Boston where she watched phlebotomists drawing blood.

“I thought to myself, ‘I want to be the one doing the draw,'” she said.

Once Walker gets a job in phlebotomy, she plans to continue her education through the community college system.

“I think I want to be a physician’s assistant,” she said.

The Alfond Foundation is well-known in Maine for donating to state schools. In January it pledged $80 million toward facility improvements benefitting all 17 varsity programs at the University of Maine. That donation boosted the foundation’s total commitment to UMaine athletics to $170 million.