Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP) was among the individuals and organizations honored for outstanding community involvement at Tuesday evening’s Hazard-Perry County Chamber of Commerce’s 58th annual Civic Night.

EKCEP and EKCEP Executive Director Jeff Whitehead were honored with the “Hazard Community and Technical College 2010 Advancement Award.” The college hosted Civic Night on its campus.

Whitehead said he is pleased with the way EKCEP and Hazard Community and Technical College have worked together to provide the skills training and education that eastern Kentuckians need to compete in today’s job market. He also said he is proud to see EKCEP recognized alongside other people and organizations that have contributed so much to community development and improvement.

“I am pleased and honored to work with such a dedicated group of people and to be a partner of Kentucky Community and Technical College System in Hazard,” Whitehead said.

EKCEP is a non-profit workforce development agency that provides Workforce Investment Act Services in 23 eastern Kentucky counties and administers the JobSight Network of Workforce Centers. Some of EKCEP’s recent notable initiatives include “Let’s Go 2 Work,” which used federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to employ more than 3,000 young people in summer jobs in eastern Kentucky, and GED2Job, which is helping more than 250 area people obtain a GED and go on to get the job training or education they need to start a career.