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LINCOLN — Nebraska has been awarded a $1.67 million federal grant to boost employment and training services for people impacted by the closure of the Tyson Foods plant in Lexington, the U.S. Department of Labor announced.
A news release Thursday from the federal agency called the Tyson plant’s January shutdown and layoff of 3,200 workers an unprecedented event for Lexington, which has a population of about 11,000 residents.
It said the national Dislocated Worker Grant will allow the Nebraska Department of Labor, which applied for the grant, to provide training and skills development for dislocated workers in the counties of Buffalo, Custer, Dawson, Frontier, Gosper, Lincoln and Phelps.
These are discretionary grants awarded by the U.S. Secretary of Labor under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. They provide supplemental funding that helps states and communities respond to and recover from large, often unexpected events that dislocate workers.
Grace Johnson, a spokesperson for the Nebraska Department of Labor, said the funding would enable the state to amp up and continue efforts it already started, including job skills training and English classes to get former Tyson workers into new employment.
For example, the state will host a March 26 event related to the Tyson closure at the Dawson County Fairgrounds in Lexington. A one-hour resume writing workshop at 9 a.m. will be offered in English and Spanish. The next hour will feature resume writing in Somali and English. And a job fair will be held from noon to 3 p.m. at the fairgrounds. Participation is free, and no registration is required.
Also this week, Lutheran Family Services said it had started distributing relief checks to dislocated Tyson workers who reached out for a piece of a $1.1 million gift from Omaha-based Sherwood Foundation to former workers.
Registration for financial assistance began Monday, and already all of roughly 1,400 available appointment slots had been filled into early April.
Lutheran Family Services is administering the Sherwood donation as one-time cash assistance to eligible recipients who must have been laid off by Tyson. Eligible individuals will receive $500 to address their immediate needs, and the nonprofit expects to serve about 2,000 people with the funds.
