The competition was heated.
Students in the welding program at the Golden Isles College and Career Academy crowded around the worktable Friday as one of their peers tried to out-weld an unlikely opponent.
Across the table, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher and Glynn Academy alumnus Adam Wainwright held the torch.
The competition followed a check presentation with Wainwright, who donated $20,000 to the Career Academy.
Mike Benson, welding instructor at GICCA, said the donation will allow the welding program to purchase new equipment, including CNC plasma tables.
“We’re going to buy a shorter one, a 4-foot one, so we can do smaller, more intricate work,” Benson said.
The donation will also support scholarships that benefit all programs at GICCA, which offers 18 career pathways, including health care, agriculture, graphic design and carpentry.
Wainwright has previously worked with several pathways at the Career Academy, including welding. He has brought equipment used at his local farm, 5 Oaks Farm, to GICCA for students to work on.
Donations like the one Friday allow GICCA to meet the community’s workforce development needs by helping to ensure it can provide students with a top-tier education, Benson said.
“It’s support from the community that helps us bring our standards up to meet the community needs,” he said. “… It helps us get the right equipment, so when they leave here they’re set up to go to work anywhere in the community or anywhere in the nation and get a job and be familiar with the current equipment.”
Wainwright said he wanted to help the school achieve its mission.
“I didn’t give the money for a photo-op and a story, but if it helps other people understand the mission here and how wonderful this program is and how it helps the kids here, then that’s great,” Wainwright said. “I’ve welded with these guys a few times. They’re super skilled.”
GICCA programs help students leave high school prepared to enter a competitive workforce, he said.
“These students are going to step right out of high school and be ready for the job that they step into, and that’s worth its weight in gold,” Wainwright said. “With no student debt and being able to go out and earn a living right away, a living wage, that’s huge.”
Benson said there are plenty of companies — local and nonlocal — that are looking to hire skilled welders.
He said there are currently 55 students in his welding program at GICCA. He expects about 30% of those students to leave the Career Academy with a job in welding.
“My advisory board is made up of several local fabricating shops and welding shops, and the kids leave out of here and go right to work there,” he said.