About Dream It Do It
Look around you – almost everything you see was manufactured: the laptop you’re using, the chair you’re sitting in, the shirt on your back. Manufacturing these products takes people with a wide variety of skills and interests – and these are good jobs with great pay and benefits. Yet throughout Western New York, many of these opportunities are going unfilled.
Dream It Do It WNY is energizing the future of manufacturing talent by building an early talent pipeline in Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, and Niagara counties. We connect middle and high school students with hands-on learning, career exploration, fun events, industry-recognized certifications, and real pathways to rewarding careers in manufacturing.
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What people say about Dream It Do It
“An important component of educating students is connecting them with a sense of purpose and agency. Students learn about career opportunities in our region, as it helps them envision a purpose for what they are learning. Dream It Do It offers hands on experiences to students—while also providing them with insights about potential employers. It also helps inform administrators, teachers and counselors in our region about advanced manufacturing, a major aspect of our local economy.”
“Our number one challenge is finding a skilled workforce. Dream It Do It is a critically important initiative in helping our company develop a skilled workforce in that it connects students and educators with the world of manufacturing. Without Dream It Do It we would struggle to build the relationships we need to build our workforce.”
“An important aspect of our workforce development efforts is connecting with our schools. We see our local students as critically important to building our workforce now and well into the future. We have supported and partnered with Dream It Do It because the initiative has helped bridge our plant to the community, the schools and the training system.”
“The Dream It Do It initiative in concert with the Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier was with us every step of the way as we developed the P-TECH program. Today, the organizations work in partnership with us to inform our programming as we strive to keep it relevant as technology and processes advance, help us understand the workforce needs of the region’s manufacturers and provide projects and work experiences for our students.”
“Enrolling our students with the Dream It Do It Advanced Manufacturing Program provides an opportunity to create stronger connections to manufacturing career pathways, rewards students for their school-based work and engagement in hands-on programming through Dream It Do It and builds engagement directly with manufacturers.”
“The Dream It Do It Advanced Manufacturing Program Certification is a valuable resource in that it helps students showcase their talents and interests while enabling our company to connect and recruit them into career opportunities that we offer. We see the program as an essential part of our strategy to build a talent pipeline to careers here at Blackstone Advanced Technologies.”
“Creating things makes me happy….. I liked the camp because everyone was helpful and they encouraged me to create!”
“I learned how to use a bandsaw, a shear, a circular saw, mills, drills and welding equipment……we did everything!”
