Ivanka Trump hears about workforce
development in Illinois
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Ivanka Trump, adviser to
President Donald Trump, takes part in a round table discussion at Lewis and
Clark Community College where Brad Schaive, a Springfield-area labor leader,
talks about focusing on ex-offenders
President
Donald Trump’s daughter said she’ll take what she heard about workforce
development from a roundtable in the Metro East to the White House to help
improve the administration’s efforts.
Ivanka
Trump joined a roundtable discussion Wednesday at Lewis and Clark Community
College in Godfrey, Illinois. The group heard from employers, a labor leader
and students about what is being done to get workers trained for skilled jobs.
Welding
student Charlie Umphrey was on the panel. She said she started going to a
four-year school for business and engineering. Many of her friends were also
going to four-year schools. After a few semesters, Umphrey said she knew she
wanted something more hands on.
“I
enrolled in the welding program at Lewis and Clark. Right away I loved it,”
Umphrey said. “It was the most amazing thing that I have done with my life thus
far.”
Trump
said part of the goal of her father’s administration is to work toward
rebranding education to get to what it’s really about.
“Obviously
that’s to prepare people to be able to thrive and to be able to succeed and to
be able to provide for themselves and ultimately their families if they chose
to have one,” Trump said.
Springfield-area
labor leader Brad Schaive was also on the panel and said his organization
visits with prisons to tell them about the opportunities available for people
getting out.
Trump
took note. She said conditions are great for ex-offenders to get jobs.
“Having
an economy such as we do today really enables them that chance, so those who
have served their time, who have paid back their debt to society, they should
be afforded that opportunity to thrive,” Trump said.
After
the panel discussion, Schiave said not only does a job help ex-offenders become
productive members of society, it also saves taxpayers.
“They
would have maybe gone back [to prison], we pay for that,” Schaive said.
"They would have been receiving healthcare on the state, we would have
been paying for that. So now they're part of society and they're living the
American dream and I think that’s what we should be doing trying to work toward
that goal.”
Trump
said prison reform and job training for ex-offenders is an important issue
intersecting with workforce development her father’s administration is focused
on.
Before
the discussion, Trump toured Lewis and Clark’s new welding training facility,
where she tried a virtual reality welding training machine and talked to a few
of the program’s graduates.
Izabella
Stockton, of Alton, got to talk one-on-one with Trump.
“It was
pretty neat,” Stockton said. “She asked about my dad, if he was a welder, and I
told her ‘no he was just kinda of like [doing it] on the side. I’ve got family
who does it. I actually got my brother to go here for school. He graduated high
school last year … he’s going to start welding. Pretty cool.”
Trump
said she’ll take the stories she heard Wednesday with her back to D.C.
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