Cape Fear Community College raised an estimated $300,000 from about 600 attendees at its Gift of Education luncheon Wednesday.

“Every dollar raised goes straight to students scholarships,” said Margaret Robison, CFCC vice president for institutional advancement, at the end of the program. Gifts were still being tallied at that point and a firm total was not available by press time.

Donald Croteau, CEO of Vertex Rail Technologies LLC, was the event’s keynote speaker. He talked about his own difficult upbringing in the Boston-area projects with an absent father and an invalid mother.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to go to college,” he said.

Looking back on his early life, when he had “no compass or rudder,” Croteau said he wishes he had had an organization like Cape Fear behind him.

Now he does. Since making trips to Wilmington as he scouted for a location for Vertex’s operations, he has connected with a series of CFCC administrators who are helping put together training programs for Vertex new hires as well as helping aspiring Vertex employees learn skills the company will need.

“I’ve had the good fortune to work with some very prestigious colleges, but have never worked with one like Cape Fear Community College,” Croteau said, adding that he initially worried about finding enough qualified workers in Wilmington, and didn’t expect much help from local resources.

After being introduced to Cape Fear’s Amanda Lee – now the college’s interim president but then vice president of instruction – Croteau said the outpouring of ideas and programs was “like a tidal wave; I never came up for air.”

Croteau said that Lee and continuing education dean Melissa Singler “exceeded every promise they ever made,” as did other officials who provided help in getting Vertex established within the community.

Addressing the audience, Croteau urged them to give to the scholarship fund and to take a moment later to “be proud of what you have done.”

One current CFCC student and two recent graduates also spoke about what the opportunity to attend the college has meant for them.

Stephen Golf, a veteran of two Middle East deployments, completed CFCC’s nursing program this spring and was selected to participate in a training program at New Hanover Regional Medical Center this summer. His goal is to become a critical care nurse.

For Araceli Leon, a Mexican immigrant whose father is a farm worker, CFCC was a first step to getting her bachelor’s degree in biology. She is now enrolled at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Pharmacy and will receive her PharmD degree in 2018.

Lanier Warner, who grew up in the Washington, D.C., housing projects but headed off to play basketball at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, detailed his downward spiral after difficulties during his freshman year. For about 25 years he abused drugs and alcohol and was in trouble with the law; for 13 of those years he was homeless and on the run. After getting himself straightened out he came to Wilmington in 2014 and has connected with CFCC through a training program and then volunteering with the basketball team.