Today, the Northwest Technical College Foundation showed their appreciation to Bemidji Career Academies students by providing 50 dozen donuts sponsored by Knife River Materials for their first annual Day of Giving.

“The first annual Day of Giving is November 13^th and this is the technical college’s first day of giving. Our goal is to raise 50,000 in a 24-hour period. So today is just a thank you to the academies and let the communities know that they can come on campus on November 13^th and help us achieve our goal of raising $50,000,” said Ashley Johnson, NTC Foundation Executive Director.

Local businesses such as Raphael’s Bakery and Café have also supported the day of giving by allowing 10 percent of all proceeds to be giving to the NTC Foundation. A $25,000 gift was also made to the foundation.

“The funds from Day of Giving will go to support students at NTC through scholarships, programs and a new remodeled student success center. It’s a place where students can come in and work together on presentations, projects, quiet time and just a real resource for the technical college,” said Johnson.

Bemidji Career Academies is one opportunity as well as a resource for students to learn about different career options in the community.

“Opportunities to explore careers and then we partner with over 50 business and industry partners, as you can see on our champion wall in the [high school] commons, and they open their doors to real world experiences – whether those are job shadowing, internships, and some of our students are actually working for our companies right now after school or on weekends in that career path to see if that’s something they actually want to do for a living,” said Bemidji Career Academies Executive Director Brian Stefanich.

The program has over 600 students placed in 18 academies. The purpose of the Academies is to provide students with unique learning opportunities and create connections in the work field, and they allow students to go from the program, to college, and then use what they’ve learned in those careers.

“It’s important because it gives students an opportunity to go out and actually do the things that they think they’re interested in. I actually didn’t want to go for nursing at first, I actually wanted to be a speech pathologist, and going out into the nursing field around the hospital and following around nursed helped me realized what I really wanted to do. So it really helps guide you, like, ‘no, I don’t want to do this, yes, I do want to do this,'” stated recent Bemidji High School graduate Alyx Johnson.

Today was one of the many events NTC hosted for its Day of Giving. The college will be celebrating the newly remodeled student success center next week as well as ways to donate to their $50,000 goal.

By — Destiny Wiggins