HAMLET — Leaders from Amazon said Wednesday that the company plans to invest in the overall Richmond County community, not just its planned 20-building cloud computing facility at Energy Way Industrial Park.
Shannon Kellogg, vice president of public policy, announced the launch of the Amazon Richmond County Community Fund — starting out at $150,000.
“This initiative is part of Amazon’s longstanding commitment being a good neighbor and a partner by supporting and helping deliver innovative programs that will have a lasting impact on your community,” Kellogg said. “And this is just the beginning.”
Community groups, educational institutions and other nonprofits are invited to apply for grants of up to $10,000 each for new or existing community projects.
“We encourage applications for projects supporting STEM education, sustainability, environment, economic development, community revitalization, food security, housing, and I’m sure many more,” Kellogg said.
The first round is already open and closes on July 23.
Roger Wehner, vice president of economic development for Amazon Web Services, said the company will be partnering with the K-12 and community college systems to understand what the community needs are and to bring a program to locally build the skilled, technical workforce to “construct, operate, maintain, connect our data centers.
“We’ve been very successful doing that all over the world … and we want to exhaust those opportunities first here in Richmond County and the region,” Wehner said.
Richmond Community College President Brent Barbee talks about partnering with Amazon to create a workforce for the company's future data center complex at Energy Way Industrial Park.
William R. Toler - Richmond Observer
“We look forward to working with Amazon Web Services … our campus is your campus,” said Richmond Community College President Brent Barbee. “We appreciate the partnership that you have brought to us.”
The college, Barbee said, has been a customer of AWS since 2019, hosting its IT infrastructure in the cloud.
“We’re proud to be your customer, now we are proud to be your partner,” Barbee continued. “We’re looking forward to assisting with necessary training that will be needed to provide a skilled workforce for this project.”
RichmondCC currently offers several programs that align with workforce requirements, Barbee said, adding that the college is ready to work with AWS to develop additional programs and classes that will be needed.
“This project will be transformational for our community and for our college, and the college is ready and prepared to lead the educational pathways as they’re identified,” said Barbee, thanking Amazon for choosing the community.
