The College of New Caledonia’s Mackenzie campus is looking to enhance recreational trails in the area and mitigate forest fire risk through a new WorkBC Job Creation Partnership. The partnership is funded through the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction.
The JCP supports funding for organizations and provides community benefit while creating jobs to assist unemployed EI eligible clients.
The last time funding came in for this cause, according to Regional Principal Shannon Bezo, was in 2008 to 2010.
“We’ve had some overgrowth that has obviously occurred over that time, we’ve had some wind storms that have created blowdowns, we’ve had a number of different weather conditions that created the need for us to really step in and, as a community, find a solution.”
CNC Mackenzie and the WorkBC Mackenzie Employment Services Centre were looking for a project that benefits the trail building initiative recently implemented by the District of Mackenzie.
Bezo is looking to bring more training in the future.
“We were limited in the amount of training that we were able to do that would be outside of just the work that they needed to do on these trails so with that, that means that we were able to provide all of the key training to stay safe and use the equipment.
The goal, according to Bezo, is to offer the Trail Building and Maintenance program next spring.