EPA News: EPA selects Auberle for $200K grant to support environmental job training in SW Pa.

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EPA selects Auberle for $200,000 grant to support more environmental job training in Southwestern Pa. Designates total of $5.1 million for job training nationwide

PHILADELPHIA (Oct. 25, 2019) – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded a $200,000 Brownfields grant to the non-profit organization Auberle based in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.

It is one of 26 organizations nationwide to receive a total of $5.1 million in grants for environmental job training programs. Funded through the agency's successful Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training Program, these grants help to create a skilled workforce in communities where EPA brownfields assessment and cleanup activities are taking place.

"EPA is proud to support Auberle's environmental job training program in Southwestern Pennsylvania." said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Cosmo Servidio. "Auberle operates a highly respected and award-winning workforce development program with a strong network of partners to help graduates attain important jobs in the environmental field."

In 2016, Auberle completed its first EPA job training grant and placed 34 graduates in environmental jobs and leveraging more than $35,000 to support the program. Auberle, has 102 employing partners and 89 referral agencies throughout the region. With this new grant, Auberle plans to place an additional 35 graduates in environmental jobs.

Since EPA's Job Training Program began in 1998, more than 288 grants have been awarded. More than 18,000 individuals have completed training, and of those, more than 13,679 individuals have been placed in full-time employment earning an average starting wage of more than $14 an hour. Rather than filling local jobs with contractors from distant cities, EPA created its environmental job training program to offer residents of communities historically affected by environmental pollution, economic disinvestment, and brownfields an opportunity to gain the skills and certifications needed to secure local environmental work in their communities. 

All 26 selected programs plan to serve communities with census tracts designated as federal Opportunity Zones – an economically-distressed community where new investments, under certain conditions, may be eligible for preferential tax treatment.

For more information on all 26 job training grantees awarded today, please visit:

https://cfpub.epa.gov/bf_factsheets/index.cfm?grant_type_id=1003&grant_announcement_year=2018

Background 

EPA's Job Training Program awards competitive grants to nonprofit organizations and other eligible entities to recruit, train, and place unemployed and underemployed individuals. Individuals completing these training programs have often overcome a variety of barriers to employment. Many are from low-income neighborhoods. The training programs also serve minorities, tribal members, transitioning veterans, dislocated workers who have lost their jobs as a result of manufacturing plant closures, and other individuals who may face barriers to employment.

For more information on this, and other types of Brownfields grants, please visit: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/types-brownfields-grant-funding

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