Q: What does support look like in practice?
Tonnickie: “Mariana G. is someone I think about a lot. She didn’t say much in her interview, but what she did say was, ‘I really, really want this. I don’t know how I’m gonna do it, but I want to be an ironworker.’ You hear that often. But Mariana was one of those students who you could tell it was real — nothing was going to get in her way. We ran a pilot that cycle, placing a small group of students with local unions for a week. She was selected, and they recruited her almost immediately. She didn’t even finish out the full cohort. She was emotional about that — she wanted to graduate with the group she started with. We made sure she could do both. And from there, she just took off.”
Desirée: “What I’ve seen from Tonnickie, working alongside her — especially the past year and a half when I was teaching alone — has been really valuable. Students open up to me. They’ll tell me they’re housing insecure, or that they’re a single mom dealing with something at home. I can be a support in those moments, but I can’t carry that weight and teach at the same time. So I tag-team with Tonnickie. She takes on that side so I can focus on the classroom.
“There are students I’ll always carry with me. We recently marked the one-year anniversary of losing one of our students, Deshante. Tonnickie was there through it all — talking to her grandmother and helping another student in that same cohort arrange childcare so she could still attend class. The investment we make in these women goes way beyond what shows up in program data. These are people. And when they show up, they show up with everything — not just the drive to learn, but everything else life has handed them.”
Q: What makes the CWIT approach different from other workforce training programs?
Desirée: “Having a space that is just for women, femme, and nonbinary folks — where gender is simply not a factor — means we’re here to learn. That’s it. And being taught by women who have lived through the same barriers our students face is something you can’t replicate. It’s not words. They see it in action every day.
“CWIT also provides things that might sound small but are actually significant: a clothing exchange for safety gear, transportation stipends. These are real barriers. But we just work around them. Our students aren’t processed through a system and never seen again. We expect them to come back, keep building, and stay part of this community. Even if someone ends up as the only woman on their job site — and that’s still often the reality — they have a whole community of women welders behind them. That’s their home base.”
Tonnickie: “That ongoing connection is something I’ve seen across every program I’ve worked in — but what CWIT does is make it structural. The networking and gatherings — these aren’t just nice extras. They’re how women stay connected to each other after they leave here. I’ve interviewed students who came from other programs and said they walked away and just never heard from anyone again. That isolation is real, and it affects whether people stay in the trades. Here, you’re not just completing a training. You’re joining something that continues.”
Q: What do you wish more people understood about women in the trades?
Desirée: “Strength. I think that’s the first thing people question — whether women are strong enough for this work. And they mean physical strength, but that’s actually the least of it. It’s the mental strength to work 10- and 12-hour days. The emotional resilience to be the only woman in the room and navigate what comes with that. The problem-solving instinct — when something’s too heavy to move on your own, you figure out how to get it from point A to point B. That’s strength. Women have it in abundance, and it tends to get underestimated.”
Tonnickie: “I think about what students say when they’re getting ready to go into the field. A lot of them come in unsure—they don’t see themselves as having the experience or credibility yet. And I tell them: your confidence is your currency right now. The skills will come. But if you can walk in the door believing you belong there, you’re already ahead. That’s what I want them to leave here with, above everything else.”
Q: How important is it that CWIT stays connected to women after they graduate?
Desirée: “It was a lifeline for me. When I was working in the industry, I would text my instructors about everything — a hard day with a difficult coworker, a grip strain that had my hand hurting for six months because nobody told me not to death-grip the welding gun. Simple questions and complicated ones. There were days I just came back in to be in the space again, because it can be exhausting out there. Having that connection is part of what kept me going. And now, when my students reach out, I understand exactly why they’re calling. Our work doesn’t stop when they graduate.”
Tonnickie: “Once students reach certain milestones, the support expands — they’re not just connected to Desirée and me anymore. They’re connected to the broader organization: employment placement support, apprenticeship navigation, and ongoing follow-through from the whole team. Collaboration internally is what makes that work. If I haven’t spoken to a student in a while, I know someone else has. That continuity matters.”
Q: What keeps you passionate about this work?
Tonnickie: “I genuinely care about people’s outcomes. Not the numbers — the people. When a graduation ends, I always thank our students for trusting us with a part of their journey. Because if it weren’t for them showing up and taking that leap, none of this would exist. When I hear a mother or grandmother say, ‘I’m so glad she did this’ — that has real value to me. And I always remind our students that no one can take away what they’ve learned to do with their hands. That skill goes with them everywhere.”
Desirée: “Disrupting norms. Giving women a skill that belongs to them, that no economy or political climate can take away. That’s what keeps me here.”
