ST. LUCIE COUNTY \u2013 In just its second year of existence, the Treasure Coast Center for Economic and Educational Development (TCCEED) increased both the number of employers and the number of student interns in its summer internship program.<\/p>\n
More Treasure Coast students are gaining paid work experience this summer as the Treasure Coast Center for Economic and Educational Development\u2019s (TCCEED) internship program continues to grow.<\/p>\n
In its second year, the program doubled the number of participating employers from 25 to 50 and increased the number of student interns from 50 to 61.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually doubled the business partners this year, so instead of 25 we have 50, which is very exciting,\u201d said Anita Fischer, Workforce Readiness at the EDC. \u201cAnd instead of having 50 interns, we have 61 this year. We had 320 applicants, which tripled from last year. And we have very high-quality interns as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The students make $15 an hour and intern for six weeks, but the employers don\u2019t pay the students themselves. \u201cWe are on our second year of the Boys and Girls Club using a private donor to fund all the interns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, 14 of the 2025 summer interns were hired the day of graduation; 17 are still working in this community.<\/p>\n
One of the companies that hired their summer interns is St. Lucie Battery and Tire. General manager Ken Walsh had six interns last year, hired three at the end of the program and a year later, two are still with the company. \u201cIt\u2019s a great concept overall, especially for some of these kids that are motivated and need a stepping stone into the workforce. Part of the success in the program is finding people who are interested in a field and nurturing that interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthew Polanco, a 19-year-old recent graduate of Port St. Lucie High School, is interning at Precast Specialties, a manufacturer of precast and pre-stressed concrete products. \u201cI heard about the program on the high school\u2019s teams page and thought, why not give it a shot. I want to go to IRSC to get my mechanical engineering degree and then transfer to UCF to get my bachelor\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polanco is responsible for digitizing older drawings onto AutoCAD so the company can have more recent and updated versions of plans. Besides learning the job, Polanco said he\u2019s learned workplace and interviewing skills, communicating with coworkers, setting proper expectations, and general team-building skills.<\/p>\n
Jancie Baise, structural division manager at Precast Specialties, supervises Polanco. \u201cI heard we could get an intern to help us with updating some of our older catalog. I was completely on board because we need help in drafting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wes McCurry, president of the\u00a0St. Lucie County Economic Development Council (EDC) explained why workforce readiness ties in with the EDC. \u201cA big part of our economic development mission is workforce readiness. One of the things we hear a lot in the community is that our kids go to high school, they graduate, they go to college and they don\u2019t come back,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are so many opportunities for careers here in St. Lucie County that people aren\u2019t aware of. So, we can show the students all the opportunities, careers, businesses, that are available right here in St. Lucie County. You don\u2019t have to leave to go somewhere else to work and find a career and get good pay. The more we can highlight that, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LUCIE COUNTY \u2013 In just its second year of existence, the Treasure Coast Center for Economic and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[42423,171,173,172],"class_list":["post-338394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-business_news","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}