CVCC Named Winner in NACCE 2020 Pitch for the Trades Competition
Catawba Valley Community College has been announced as one of five winners of the 2020 Pitch for the Trades competition through the National Association of Community Colleges for Entrepreneurship (NACCE).
10/26/2020
Catawba Valley Community College has been announced as one of five winners of the 2020 Pitch for the Trades competition through the National Association of Community Colleges for Entrepreneurship (NACCE).
CVCC’s project for the competition was entitled “One-of-a-Kind Collaboration between Catawba Farms and CVCC” and featured its new unique Red Hawk Red Blend wine partnership — the first co-branded wine developed by a college in the Catawba Valley area.
Last month, Catawba Valley Community College was named one of seven semifinalists after the second of the three rounds of the Pitch for the Trades competition, and on October 13, NACCE announced that CVCC was one of the five winners chosen in the competition, receiving $25,000 of the $125,000 prize pool.
"We are very pleased to be recognized as a winner of the 2020 NACCE Pitch for the Trades competition,” said Gary Muller, dean of CVCC’s School of Workforce Development and the Arts. “Our award will enable us to work closely with Catawba Farms to make a very positive impact on our community. Our one-of-a-kind collaboration with Catawba Farms enables our students to work with several different academic programs in our school and see how their individual contributions come together to create something very special for our community.”
The Red Hawk Red Blend wine partnership is the first of 12 projects planned between CVCC and Catawba Farms, which will focus at drastically changing the area’s hospitality and entertainment market.
“Our joint projects with Catawba Farms will spur job creation and new business start-ups in our community and, at the same time, provide our students with real-life opportunities to apply the skills that they’re learning in the classroom,” Muller said. “We are very fortunate to have business partners like Catawba Farms that provide our students with a living lab to get on-the-job experience in a very positive environment."
This was the second year of the NACCE 2020 Pitch for the Trades competition, which was presented in partnership with the Philip E. & Carole R. Ratcliffe Foundation.
NACCE’s goal is to grow the community college’s role in supporting job creation and entrepreneurs in their local ecosystem
“We are very impressed with the proposals submitted this year,” said Carlene Cassidy, CEO of the Philip E. & Carole R. Ratcliffe Foundation. “The entrepreneurial activity and training programs being created to support emerging opportunities in skilled trades is exciting. The pandemic has clearly not slowed these colleges as they continue to innovate and encourage entrepreneurial activity and job creation in their communities. We admire their leadership, persistence and ability to adapt during a time of uncertainty.”
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