The Collision Repair Education Foundation and AkzoNobel Automotive & Aerospace Coatings have selected the winners of the new Sustainability Challenge Grant.
These schools were selected based on their submitted proposals for applying continuous improvement and sustainability principles that improve the processes in the school’s body shop or improve the way the shop interacts and impacts the community. The projects were driven by student teams in the schools and mentored by their collision instructors. Each winning school will receive funding to introduce their proposed idea into their school and to report on the success of their project.
The winners include:
- Applied Technology Center (Rock Hill, S.C.)
- Cerritos College (Norwalk, Calif.)
- Gaithersburg High School (Gaithersburg, Md.)
- Manhattan Area Tech College (Manhattan, Kan.)
- Northern Maine Community College (Presque Isle, Maine)
In addition to the awards, the program also served as a way to educate collision students across the country about sustainability and its principles and how students could improve and make a positive impact on the environment. The sustainability video series, which is available at the Education Foundation’s website, is one of the available tools for instructors to teach their classes about sustainability.
“We are very proud to partner with AkzoNobel for this first ever school Sustainability Grant,” said Clark Plucinski, Collision Repair Education Foundation executive director. “This is a great way to get students involved at a young age to learn about their impact on the environment and to think about ways to make a difference, specifically in the area of collision repair. The proposals show that students are ready and willing to take on the problems of tomorrow today, and we look forward to continuing this program in the future to introduce even more students to the idea of sustainability.”
Added Doug Holmberg, director of vehicle refinishes North America for AkzoNobel, “Sustainability is one of the top three strategic imperatives for AkzoNobel. To ensure this goal is achieved we must work with customers, suppliers and key stakeholders to build awareness and expand knowledge. It has been our privilege and pleasure to collaborate with the Collision Repair Education Foundation in an effort to bring this facet of learning to secondary and post-secondary schools that are in the process of preparing the next generation workforce for the collision repair industry.”
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