Local officials broke ground Friday, Oct. 30, for a Bell County construction project that represents a new local approach to vocational training.

Fifteen participants will work full time for six months learning construction techniques and putting those skills to work to build an energy-efficient single-family house in the Vista Venado subdivision in Middlesboro.

The project is a partnership of the Bell-Whitley Community Action Agency (Bell-Whitley CAA), Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP), and Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College (SKCTC), and is funded in part by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Project participants will spend 37 hours a week either working on the house or working in an SKCTC classroom to learn construction techniques, basic electricity, basic plumbing, the business aspects of construction, and energy-efficient “green” technologies. Participants will earn college credit and two construction-related certifications: Residential Carpenter and Carpenter Helper.

The goal of the project is to produce “job ready” carpenters through intense hands-on and classroom experience, according to Crawford Blakeman, EKCEP Business Solutions manager.

“It’s providing a real opportunity for a lot of people to get a lot of true hands-on type training,” he said.

There’s also a business component to the training that will help prepare participants to work for a construction contractor or even to go into business for themselves, Blakeman said.

Peggy S. Capps, Executive Director of Bell-Whitley CAA, said her agency was happy to take the lead on the project, coming up with the idea, buying the land and paying for the materials while EKCEP provided funding for the instructional portion of the program and SKCTC provided the training.

“This project is a new initiative for Bell-Whitley which will allow the agency to expand our efforts in home construction.  We are excited about the project and look forward to working with the college and EKCEP in construction of a single family home,” Capps said.

Craig Brock, deputy director of Bell-Whitley CAA, said the project is an excellent opportunity for the people who take part, many of whom have been laid off from other jobs.

“It’s something you can make a career of and this training gives them an advantage,” Brock said. “Who knows, at some point some of them may be major contractors building houses throughout the state.”

It represents a new type of program for Bell-Whitley CAA, and the agency hopes to duplicate this approach in the future if it is successful, Brock said.

At the end of the project Bell-Whitley CAA will sell the house to a local family, possibly a former participant in one of its programs for low-income local residents, Brock said. Bell-Whitley hopes to help fund a future construction project with the money it recoups from the sale.

SKCTC President Dr. Bruce Ayers said the partnership provides an “ideal” learn-by-doing opportunity for the participants.

“I’m just so excited about this,” he said.

The lessons learned in this project, especially the lessons in implementing energy efficient construction techniques, can be used in the future by SKCTC, possibly in construction projects similar to this one, Ayers said.

Many people worked together to make the construction project possible, Brock said. SKCTC’s heavy equipment class provided the site preparation at no charge. Brock said he also wants to give recognition to John and Teresa Brown of Forest Land Management and Development, Inc., who were very supportive of the project while selling the land to Bell-Whitley CAA.

Several of the participants in the project were on hand for the groundbreaking – and anxious to get to work.

“I always wanted to build houses since I was young,” said Wiley Pittman of Middlesboro.

Pittman, who is currently unemployed after driving trucks for nine years, said it would be good to have the skills for a new career. He said he needed to change to a career that would better support him and his family, and this project would be a step along the road to a career in construction or maybe even his own construction business one day.

“I think it will help,” he said.

EKCEP administers the JobSight workforce network in the 23 eastern Kentucky counties that comprise the region’s coalfields. JobSight business services are delivered in Bell County by the Bell-Whitley Community Action Agency under contract with EKCEP.