(NewsNation) — A major corporate donation will help get college students training and firsthand experience to become truck drivers, in hopes of helping an industry severely in need of drivers.

Coca-Cola United made a donation of two diesel trucks to a community college in Alabama, a state where trucking is a dominant, multibillion dollar industry.

The Alabama Trucking Association said in 2019 that one out of every 15 jobs in the state was in the trucking business.

“Because these are trucks that can actually rove around the state, it allows us to bring the training to folks who might be in more rural areas, it allows us to provide additional support to our colleges,” Vice Chancellor Susan Price said. “What it does is, it just helps fill the pipeline faster.”

The donation is one way to combat a continuing struggle to keep truck drivers on the road. The American Trucking Association said the U.S. is down 78,000 drivers, a near record high.

The group said over the next decade, to keep up with drivers retiring or leaving, along with overall industry growth, the commercial trucking industry needs to recruit over 1 million new drivers.

In Washington on Wednesday, members of the trucking industry told lawmakers that keeping drivers on the job is becoming harder as their working conditions become increasingly more difficult.

“Truckers struggle to find a safe place to park, wasting nearly an hour of productive time each day searching for a place to rest. They’re routinely denied access to restrooms at the facilities where they pick up and deliver. Drivers’ compensation has been stagnant for decades, failing to even keep up with inflation,” said William Pugh, vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.

During NewsNation’s Truck Week last year, correspondent Brian Entin met up with a truck driver facing those challenges every day.

He told NewsNation about the hours of waiting without getting paid and without a washroom.

“You don’t get paid while you wait. The industry is paid by the mile for the most part, so if the truck isn’t rolling, you aren’t getting paid for the time you’re sitting at the receivers,” Chris Eme said.

As of now, companies and colleges are trying to combat the shortage of truck drivers with training. Meanwhile, the truckers are also pushing for better working conditions, with some saying it’s not a shortage of drivers but a shortage of people willing to work in the current environment.