The energy workforce of the next decade is sitting in a classroom right now — in a shop class, in an auditorium with an HVAC system that works, in a cafeteria line where a student isn’t doing math on lunch debt.
Preparing and inspiring that workforce — removing the obstacles that have nothing to do with how hard a student works — takes a lot of hands. Educators, school staff, PTAs, coaches, and families carry most of that weight. CNX’s role is to help fill the remaining gaps. CNX’s Mentorship Academy is the most visible way the company helps, but it isn’t the only one.
Across the communities where CNX operates, employees and the CNX Foundation show up in smaller, more immediate ways that make a school year successful: supplies on the first day, a paid-off lunch account, a partner who’ll respond when a district calls. These small acts remove the daily friction that determines whether a kid stays engaged long enough to become the welder, lineman, or engineer the region will need. That work is hyper-local by design, and it’s happening right now as the new school year gets underway.
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In July, 400 totes of school supplies were provided to Hempfield Area School District in Westmoreland County as part of CNX’s ongoing school supply initiative.
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The initiative also featured a July backpack and school supply giveaway by CNX’s Virginia operations team (shown at top). The event provided 1,000 clear backpacks to the community, helping Tazewell County students adhere to new school safety policy requiring clear backpacks.
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CNX volunteers have also assembled hundreds of personal hygiene kits. These are being distributed at back-to-school events over the next several weeks.
Cumulatively, across the 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 school years, CNX has provided $75,549 in school supplies.
That includes providing 49,632 pencils, 6,480 rolls of paper towels, 5,088 boxes of tissues, 4,980 dry-erase markers, and 2,300 backpacks, among other essential supplies.
These efforts pick up where last spring left off. As the 2025-2026 school year came to a close, CNX held end-of-year appreciation lunches for teachers and staff at River Valley Middle-High School, Jeannette High School, and Armstrong Junior-Senior High School.
Clearing the balance
CNX has also worked to remove a barrier that follows students from one year to the next: unpaid school lunch balances.
CNX has eliminated nearly $130,000 in outstanding lunch debt across its communities since 2023 – clearing students’ accounts and allowing those families to start the new year without a balance carried over from the last one. It’s a straightforward intervention with an outsized effect — no student’s meal account should determine how they show up to class.
Each of these efforts reflects CNX’s micro-TIL — Tangible, Impactful, Local — approach to community support. Rather than a large check to a broad cause, CNX directs support to specific schools, specific students, and specific needs in the counties where its employees live and work.
Together, these commitments helped students close out the last school year strong and gave them what they need to get the 2026–2027 year underway. This is what Appalachia First looks like at the classroom level.