Excerpts from shawlocal.com:
The Romeoville Fire Academy has received $100,000 from Endeavor Health, which it will use to provide tuition assistance to students from underserved communities.
The money is part of Endeavor’s Community Investment Fund and was awarded to support workforce development aimed at recruiting, training, and launching firefighter and Emergency Medical Technician careers with a focus on young adults from diverse communities.
Romeoville’s Fire Academy is one of the largest training programs in the state and was one of 43 organizations chosen throughout northern Illinois by Endeavor to receive funds to support programs for behavior health, violence prevention, housing and food insecurity, and access to care, and workforce development.
They sought the funding because the academy had begun seeing a trend where students of different ethnic groups wanted to join up but would become defeated when they heard the cost during recruiting sessions. The issue is troubling since there is a nationwide shortage of firefighters and EMTs, including in Illinois.
This grant funding will allow for between 10 and 12 students from underserved communities to complete fire academy and EMT schooling and gain access to job placement. The academy has assembled a committee that is currently developing a program to allocate the grant funding to students.
Endeavor Health is Illinois’ third-largest health system, and third-largest medical group. It launched its Community Investment Fund in 2022 and has reportedly impacted more than 211,000 individuals with the services it has helped support and expand.
