PORT HAWKESBURY, N.S. — Keisha Price-Pierro thought she’d have to sleep in her car to continue attending classes at the Nova Scotia Community College Strait area campus.
The 21-year-old office administration student had just left a bad relationship with her boyfriend and didn’t have a place to live. Struggling to make ends meet, the Wagmatcook resident could barely afford to put gas into an old car that could barely make the 45-minute drive to the Port Hawkesbury college. Now, thanks in part to a corporate sponsorship that creates on-campus jobs for students, Price-Pierro will not only receive her certificate in June, she’ll do so as valedictorian.
“I was practically homeless — I didn’t have anywhere to go — but I didn’t want to miss school. I didn’t want to miss classes, because I was dedicated,” said Price-Pierro, whose classmates also voted her their class representative. “At one point I thought I was going to have to sleep in my car just to go to school because I wasn’t able to travel back and forth long distances.”
Price-Pierro is one of six students employed part-time by the Strait area campus this semester as part of the RBC Student Works Fund. The two-year, $100,000 pilot project, which launched in January, lets students earn paycheques and pad their resumés by doing jobs related to their field of study. Price-Pierro said the money she makes working 11 hours a week at the school converting files as an archivist and performing administrative duties for the student services office has made a big difference.
“It helped me a lot, actually. Since working for RBC Student Works Fund I was able to pay for the gas and I bought a new car,” she said, adding that her classes taught her how to make the most of her money. “I just finished accounting in my class, so I’m very good with money. I can budget very well — except when I didn’t have anything to go off of.”
Tom Gunn, principal of Nova Scotia Community College Strait area campus, said school officials approached RBC as part of the NSCC’s Make Way campaign. The provincewide initiative is nearing its goal of raising $25 million from corporate sponsors and donors to help students at its 13 campuses. He said RBC’s contribution means the Strait area campus can hire about 24 students in total over each of the next four semesters.
“Most of our students struggle financially so RBC has this really innovative model that instead of giving a bursary or scholarship to them or urgent aid, they’re really providing work for them,” said Gunn. “They get the casual or part-time work with the campus in their field of study, they get to show on their resumé that they’re working for NSCC, which looks good for them, but also they’re getting financial help to complete their studies. So the campus benefits from it and the student benefits, as well.”
Meanwhile, Price-Pierro said although she’s set to graduate, she’ll be sticking around the NSCC Strait area campus a little while longer. She learned this week that she landed a summer internship job at the college while she’s enrolled in a business leadership course at the Strait Area Chamber of Commerce. She’s also not ruling out returning there in the fall.
“I’m thinking about going again in September because I love the school so much and the atmosphere is so positive that the people just make me want to go back,” she said. "They helped me a lot, the whole entire school — staff, counsellors — were all very supportive to me. I think I would go there every year of my life if I could.”
