Baltimore Sewn Trades Training Program (BSTTP)
Made In Baltimore is proud to partner with Open Works, SewLab USA, and the Industrial Sewing and Innovation Center on The Baltimore Sewn Trades Training Program (BSTTP), an innovative workforce development initiative that is up-skilling Baltimoreans for jobs in the sewn trades.
Following a successful pilot in 2017, our partnership was recently awarded funding through the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development’s (MOED) Train Up program to train four cohorts of Baltimoreans over the next two years in industrial sewing techniques.
Made In Baltimore is lending a hand to this effort by recruiting sewn trades employers in the Baltimore area to host site visits for the trainees and come speak to them during class hours at Open Works. Our goal is to foster relationships that may end with job placements for trainees at the end of the program.
In May and June of 2022, MIB organized three tours for the first trainee cohort. We visited 9 different businesses in the Baltimore area that work in different sectors of the sewn trades, from apparel to upholstery (and even dog beds!). Through these tours, our trainees were given the opportunity to meet leaders in Baltimore’s sewn trades industry, learn the paths that guided them to entrepreneurship, and witness several very different business models in the sector.
