WeldWerks Funding Scholarship For BIPOC Students At University Of Northern Colorado
GREELEY, Colo. (CBS4) – WeldWerks Brewing Co. in Greeley is funding a scholarship program for students of color at the University of Northern Colorado. The company says the effort began after employees looked at diversity in their workplace and around the industry after the events of last summer.
"We are committed with our own resources and everything we have here to investing in this community and making it as great and diverse as a place as it can be," said Jake Goodman, CMO for WeldWerks.
At WeldWerks, 2020 was a year of self-reflection and change. Like many businesses in the hospitality industry, the brewery made a pandemic pivot to to-go sales and outdoor seating. Employees at the Greeley staple also reexamined their workplace.
"After the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, there was just a reckoning internally," Goodman said.
According to Goodman, that reckoning led the brewery employees to be more willing to be outspoken about social justice issues, but that wasn't enough. Staff also decided the brewery should take steps to make the brewery and industry more diverse.
A 2019 national survey by the Brewing Association found just one percent of brewery owners and four percent of employees were Black. Numbers for Indigenous and Latinx people were also in the single digits.
"This industry that we're in has a dire need for more diversity across all spectrums," Goodman said.
WeldWerks decided a way to change that was a scholarship program at the University of Northern Colorado.
The WeldWerks Diversity Scholarship will be a yearly scholarship for current and prospective University of Northern Colorado (UNC) students of color, with an additional preference towards those who have an interest in Brewing Science. WeldWerks has donated $25,000 to seed the endowment with an additional $4,000 to fund the fall 2021/2022 scholarship.
"Financial aspects can be barriers to these students," said Dr. Tobias Guzmán, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs & Chief Diversity Officer at UNC. "Financial aspects can be a deterrent in actually completing a degree."
Over the next two years, WeldWerks will contribute $100,000 into an endowment to fund the scholarship in perpetuity. One scholarship will be awarded each year.
"If you want to change the dial, move the dial essentially, then you have to invest in that," Guzmán said of WeldWerks' efforts.
The application process is open now. Students can apply online through the UNC Scholarship Application. The scholarship of $4,000 will be selected in the spring semester of 2021 to be awarded during the 2021-2022 academic year.
