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�鶹Ӱ�� received the Community Impact Award on Friday during the fifth annual Business Excellence Awards (BEAs), presented by The Chamber For a Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro.

The awards ceremony took place at the Paul Green Theatre in the Joan H. Gillings Center for Dramatic Art at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Representing the College were Dr. Bill Ingram, �鶹Ӱ�� President; Penny Gluck, Executive Dean for Orange County Services; Jaclyn Krohn, Director of Orange County Campus; and Melissa Chappell, Executive Director for the �鶹Ӱ�� Foundation.

“There were two other really good candidates, so we were surprised we were finalists and really surprised when we won,” Gluck said. “We’re very excited and honored to be chosen.”

This recognition is awarded to an organization that has greatly improved the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area socially, economically, or environmentally, according to a news release.

�鶹Ӱ�� has a number of community initiatives in Orange County, including the �鶹Ӱ�� Promise, public safety partnerships, and the College’s English as a Second Language, or ESL, classes.

The �鶹Ӱ�� Promise is a scholarship for recent high school graduates in �鶹Ӱ�� and Orange counties. There have been more than 300 recipients in Orange County alone since 2016, according to the application. This equates to $380,000 having been awarded in that time frame.

The �鶹Ӱ�� Basic Law Enforcement Training, or BLET, Academy, which partly holds classes at the Orange County Campus, has at least one or two participants from the Chapel Hill Police Department, UNC Police, or UNC Athletic Security Services in each class. By the end of the summer, 22 students will have graduated from the Orange County program for the 2018-19 academic year.

The �鶹Ӱ�� ESL program annually consists of 300 to 400 students through its free classes in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

“The county is more and more recognizing that �鶹Ӱ�� is the community college that serves them, and they are seeing that we are doing whatever we can to make sure that we are serving them and their needs,” Gluck said.

Nine other awards were presented on Friday.

Representatives from �鶹Ӱ�� will present the Community Impact Award finalists and winner at next year’s event, Gluck said.

For more information on the Orange County Campus, visit durhamtech.edu/orange-county-campus.