Donation helping Marine Training Center

The Young Memorial campus received a donation of about five acres of land to build a new 42,000-square-foot facility housing 16 classrooms for the Marine Training Center to replace temporary buildings, some of which are more than 20 years old.
Earl Meador, college director of South Central Louisiana Technical College, said this was a “very special day in the history of our college … it is the culmination of a number of years of work from a lot of people.”
Funding for a $3.7 million project was approved in last year’s legislative session. The money will be available in 2015 after a bond sale. The older buildings will either be demolished or auctioned as surplus by the state.
Meador credited the advocacy of Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin, and Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, for fighting to get the college’s share of the $251.6 million in projects across the state. The funding requires a local match of 12 percent.
In a written statement sent by email, Jones congratulated Meador and Karl Young Jr., campus administrator, for completing the negotiations with the Young Foundation for acquiring the necessary property to build the new facility.
“It is important to note that the … value of the land and improvements should satisfy the local dollar requirement,” Jones wrote. This “allows our project to move quickly up the line … as most other facilities and localities are still in the process of gathering their local match.”
H&B Young Foundation Executive Director Brenda B. Ayo said it was an easy decision to continue the foundation’s support of the college with the land donation.
“Y’all are saving people off of the streets,” Ayo said of the education and training the college provides. Students at the college are told that “you can be somebody and be a good, productive member of the community.”
Then she issued a challenge to other businesses to help support the college.
“If everybody puts in a little … there is no telling what we could become,” Ayo said.
Meador said that getting to this point has been a team effort which permeates the college from top to bottom.
“We are building communities from the river to the Gulf through education,” Meador said.
Young said the college is moving from depending solely on state aid and is “learning the art of fundraising.” He thanked several people, including the Young Foundation “for trying to help get us where we need to be.”
Since 1955, the H&B Young Foundation has supported many charitable causes in Morgan City, according to the Louisiana Community and Technical College website. The foundation donated three-and-half acres of land to be used for a vocational and technical school in 1965, which became the Young Memorial Campus of South Central Louisiana Technical College, the website states.
Ayo explained the foundation’s involvement.
“In the beginning there were two men (brothers Hugh and Byrnes Young) … who thought so much of Morgan City that they took 300 acres of land and some money and started the H&B Young Foundation … with a vision to benefit Morgan City and its citizens,” Ayo said. The foundation directors “believe in what they believed in and we ask ourselves, ‘Is this what the Young brothers would want to do?’”
She said donating the land was a big decision but was made easy by the commitment the college shows to its students and the region.
“Every single person in this organization takes pride in what they do. This makes you special … it makes us want to do what we are doing today.”
Jones said in his email that “we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Young Foundation and its members for remaining committed to Morgan City and St. Mary Parish.”
Jones explained how last year’s battle to get Morgan City its $3.7 million share of the appropriation shaped up in Baton Rouge.
“Sen. Robert Adley crafted a capital outlay proposal to improve the infrastructure at Louisiana Community and Technical Colleges,’ Jones said “Young Memorial … was completely left out and ignored … I was told by administration people that they had the votes to pass the bill and would not alter it.”
Jones said it was not an easy fight, but he managed to get enough votes to kill the entire bill if Young Memorial was not included.
“We made them see that with the needs we have and the successes we have demonstrated with the existing programs, that we should be in the bill,” Jones said.
Allain agreed that the duo had to work together to get the funding.
“Me and Sam (Jones) worked hard to make the authors of the bill and others see the wisdom of including this funding that will help train workers for good paying jobs that are there right now,” Allain said shortly after the funding was approved.
Jones said, “There are many back room fights that happen in the capital that produce the results needed,” Fighting for this funding “and getting the Bayou Chene Project included in the CPRA master plan have been two of the hardest fights I have ever had in the capital.”