Skilled Trades Are Part of the Education Conversation

This caught my attention because it is a good example of civic infrastructure without a new building.

Georgia Department of Education’s partnership with The Home Depot brings skilled-trades exploration into classrooms and community spaces using tools educators and youth organizations can actually access. That matters, particularly where specialized career-training facilities are limited.

It also connects directly to how I think about both the GROW framework and AgLab Institute: young people need more than information about careers. They need practical, early opportunities to see themselves in the work.

We are beginning to see that locally, too. Grow With Joy, Inc. and AgLab Institute are building partnerships with youth-serving organizations, including the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Augusta, to create more hands-on pathways into agriculture, food systems, and related careers.

Those partnerships are another example of building another door.

Whether the pathway is construction, electrical, agriculture, food systems, technology or another skilled field, the civic-design question is the same:

How many doors are we creating for young people to discover where they fit?