Riley Miller had been waiting for his chance to take part in Prosper Appalachia since he first heard about the program as a junior.
Prosper Appalachia is EKCEP’s youth-focused workforce initiative that helps high school students explore careers close to home through paid internships, work experience, and employer connections. For students like Miller, the program provided more than a job. It offered a first look at what it meant to work in a professional setting, build skills, and test out career interests before graduation.
A friend had participated the year before, and Miller quickly saw the opportunity: a chance to leave the classroom for part of the school day, earn money, and gain real experience in a field that already mattered to him.
“I was hyped up,” Miller said. “Like first year I was like, I want to leave school, want to go to work, make me some money.”
Miller, a senior at Harlan County High School, was especially interested in agriculture and equipment because it had been part of his life for as long as he could remember.
“The agriculture part is my really big thing about it because I’ve grown up in the agriculture lifestyle my whole life, farming around cows, pigs, sheep, goats, hay,” he said. “You name it, I’ve been around it.”
With help from Rhett Alred, a Prosper Appalachia Career Development Specialist with Harlan County Community Action Agency, Miller was connected to Meade Tractor in Harlan, where he completed a paid internship during his senior year.
“I wanted to work at Meade Tractor in Harlan because I like agriculture stuff,” Miller said. “I love to work hands-on with tractors and farming equipment, all kinds of agriculture equipment.”
At Meade Tractor, Miller cleaned and washed tractors, tested equipment, helped build lawn mowers and weed eaters, and learned more about how tractors worked. The experience helped him turn a lifelong interest into practical, hands-on career exposure.
The workplace experience itself was just as important. Before Prosper Appalachia, Miller had earned money through landscaping, mowing, and farm-related work, but he had never had a W-2 job where he tracked hours, completed timesheets, and followed a regular workplace process.
“With this, I actually had to every day write my time down and put how long I worked,” he said. “And I’ve actually figured out how to do a time chart.”
That kind of real-world learning was central to Prosper Appalachia’s purpose. Students were not only introduced to career fields available in Eastern Kentucky, but also to the expectations of employment: showing up, tracking time, communicating with supervisors, and understanding how a paycheck works.
Miller said the process of getting started was straightforward. After completing the necessary paperwork and providing required documents, he was working quickly.
Through the school partnership, Miller was able to leave after fifth period each day and report to his internship, giving him the chance to continue his education while gaining workplace experience during the school year.
After graduation, Miller planned to continue working through the summer and was also preparing for classes at Lincoln Memorial University, where he was considering engineering and possible work designing bridges, roads, and other infrastructure.
Looking back on his Prosper Appalachia experience, Miller said he would encourage other students to take part.
“It’s just a very good program,” he added, “and I would recommend to anybody that’s wanting to do it.”
Prosper Appalachia is funded in part through support from the Kentucky General Assembly as part of the Putting Young Kentuckians to Work initiative, but private donations help EKCEP expand critical work experience opportunities for students across Eastern Kentucky. To invest in the future of our region’s young people, donate directly at ekcep.org/donate.
EKCEP, a nonprofit workforce development agency headquartered in Hazard, Ky., serves the citizens of 23 Appalachian coalfield counties. EKCEP is funded by the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, along with various federal and state grants and private donations, and is a proud partner in the American Job Center network.