A registered apprenticeship pays from the first day. What stops people is the startup cost — tools, boots, and test fees that can run $1,000 or more, due before that first paycheck arrives. Company sponsors close that gap.
TurnToTrades exists to give people clear, unbiased information about careers in the skilled trades, and to put tools in the hands of those who choose that path.
Status: TurnToTrades Apprenticeship Foundation is currently organized as a NJ Nonprofit Corporation.
Tool grants exist, but they're scattered — one state, one college system, or a once-a-year window. Even where the classroom is covered, the tools rarely are. That gap sits with the person, before the first paycheck.
Day-one hand tools for an apprentice electrician run $200 to $400 — and the required list grows every year of the apprenticeship. Most contractors expect you to show up with your own.
Composite-toe boots alone can run $250. Add safety glasses, gloves, hard hat, and flame-resistant clothing and it adds up fast.
Application fees, aptitude testing, OSHA cards, code books, and the gas money to reach a jobsite forty miles out.
Annual commitments, sized for small and mid-size shops rather than corporate giving departments. Every dollar goes toward equipping someone entering the trades.
Startup costs vary widely by trade. A welder's required gear list — helmet, jacket, gloves, and hand tools — runs around $500 before boots and work clothes, while a machinist or diesel technician's required list runs well past what any single award covers. That's why awards are a fixed dollar amount applied to what a recipient's own trade and program require, and why we publish every award we make, by trade, each year.
Every package level is listed on this site. What changes between them is size and prominence, never wording — we don't run slogans, taglines, or advertising for sponsors at any level.
The second list matters more than the first. It's what makes this a scholarship program rather than a favor mill, and it's why a shop can trust it with real money.
A sponsor who could pick the recipient wouldn't be making a charitable gift, and the program wouldn't be a scholarship. Contributions go into a pool the foundation controls, and the five-member review board makes every selection.
Published in full so any sponsor, applicant, or school can read the same rules.
Leave your company name and email. We'll send the full sponsorship packet when it's available. No mailing list, no newsletter.
We are not accepting contributions yet. Nothing on this page is tax advice.
Questions, or want to talk it through first? turntotrades@gmail.com