Weiler Abrasives Launches Fundraising Campaign with Workshops for Warriors

Weiler Abrasives Group, a provider of abrasives, power brushes and maintenance products for surface conditioning, recently announced the launch of a national fundraising campaign, Leading a Warriors’ Charge, in partnership with Workshops for Warriors, a nonprofit school that trains veterans and transitioning service members into advanced manufacturing careers. Weiler donated $25,000 to kick off the year long fundraising campaign that will support machining and welding training programs at the nonprofit trade school.

“Weiler believes in the value of the Workshops for Warriors cause and is pleased to support it,” says Nate Schmid, director of marketing for the Americas at Weiler Abrasives Group. “Bringing veterans back into the workforce after they have served and training them with skills to have careers in welding and CNC machining is so important, both for their livelihoods and for our industry, as we face a major gap in the technical trades across the U.S.”

Weiler has been providing Workshops for Warriors with in-kind support since 2014, supplying abrasive products and safety products to meet the needs of every incoming class each semester. The company plans to continue offering this support. Weiler will also be showing its ongoing support for Workshops for Warriors through Leading a Warriors’ Charge, a nationwide campaign that includes promotion at trade shows, partnership-branded product packaging and more.

“Weiler has been a great supporter of ours since the outset,” says Lyle Palm, dean of welding at Workshops for Warriors. “It’s an honor to partner with a company that genuinely believes in what we’re doing.”

Since its inception in 2008, Workshops for Warriors has trained and certified 496 veterans, wounded soldiers and transitioning service members, awarding more than 3,000 nationally-recognized, third-party credentials. In 2017, 94 percent of the school’s graduates obtained jobs in advanced manufacturing after completing the program. Through the Leading a Warriors’ Charge campaign, Weiler hopes to garner support to enable Workshops for Warriors to train four times as many students.