College Home partnership realizes $101K donation
Donation made by Signature Homes
Alocal partnership between a homebuilder and Lethbridge College is helping create opportunities for future tradespeople in the city with a large cash donation to the college.
On Wednesday, the college announced a $101,122 donation from Signature Homes as part of the College Home partnership.
This is the sixth home built and sold to benefit the college’s new trades and technologies facility as part of the unique partnership between the Canadian Home Builders Association Lethbridge Region and the college.
Richard Simons, CEO of Signature Homes, called the partnership a “nobrainer” to contribute to the college where he received his own carpenter apprenticeship training.
“With my history with the college, being in the trades program as a young boy when my mother used to be the caretaker here,” he said.
He said he is proud of the work being done through the partnership and to be able to contribute to the trades program at the college. He added the importance of building the local workforce was also a valuable addition to the community.
“People are coming here for the trades, and in the rest of Alberta it’s dropping a bit,” he said. “It’s important to get our students into the trades for the future of Lethbridge itself.”
College president Paula Burns said the partnerships are an important part of improving trades programming in the city for the future.
“I think this is one of the most unique partnerships,” she said.
“All of our trades facility is about keeping the trades in southern Alberta, and that all of the companies we work with have the skilled graduates they need. One of the things I notice is that each year their are different partners and suppliers stepping up to be part of this project. We’ve expanded our network and community partners by a considerable amount with this project.”
Angela Cornforth, Canadian Homebuilders Association Lethbridge Region, said the partnership allows for many different groups to come together to make a positive contribution to trades development.
“It’s quite a unique project that has been talked about across the province, and across the country as well,” she said.
“I don’t think it was anticipated to be this big of an event for us, but everyone wants to be a part of it and has tried to contribute to this great contribution to the college.”
The College Home launched as a partnership between Lethbridge College and CHBA in 2013. The first three years of the five-year program involved two CHBA builders each year working with their suppliers and tradespeople to build two homes per year.
Each builder then makes a donation from the proceeds from the sales toward the new trades and technologies facility at Lethbridge College. Year three of the partnership featured homes built by Daytona Homes and Signature Homes.
The first five homes built as part of the initiative raised more than $517,800 in sales of the houses built. The sale of this sixth College Home to Fred and Gail Barbero brings the total donations to the college from this project to more than $618,900.