This week marks National Truck Driver Appreciation Week and Southside Virginia Community College (SVCC) is saluting the nation’s truckers as it continues to provide training to keep freight and the economy moving.

According to a press release, for the past 20 years, SVCC has successfully trained 2,029 people for careers in this industry. The college’s Truck Driver Training Program is recognized by companies as a topnotch, high quality program to train the employees they want to hire.

According to Dale Bennett, president and CEO of the Virginia Trucking Association in the tabloid, Heroes of the Highway, published Sept. 11, “These drivers delivered nearly 10 billion tons of freight last year, that’s about 70 percent of all the freight moved in the U.S. Here in Virginia, trucking transports 88 percent of our total manufactured freight.”