High school automotive programs to the north and south of the Concord Regional Technical Center will soon receive engines from former police cruisers as part of a new state Department of Safety donation program.

CRTC automotive students will have to wait their turn, but for good reason. The automotive technology class didn’t need any more engines at the moment, and more will be available in the future.

The engine donation program, unveiled this week by Gov. Kelly Ayotte, focused on need when it awarded its first four engines to the Huot Career & Technical Center in Laconia, the Manchester School of Technology and the Creteau Regional Technology Center in Rochester, according to Caroline Hakes, a spokesperson for the governor.

Anne Fowler, the principal of CRTC, said she believed other programs had more major equipment holes than Concord.

“Between our instructors and our relationships with area automotive partners, I don’t think there was a huge need,” Fowler said.

Kim Stevenson, one half of the husband-and-wife pair who developed the novel donation program, said the initial giveaways are just a start. Any of the approximately 20 high schools in the state that have automotive education programs should reach out if they have needs of their own.

Stevenson, an instructor at Lakes Region Community College and wife of Department of Safety employee Ryan Stevenson, said she hopes to ultimately expand the program to include other car parts, and potentially the cars themselves, going forward.

The Stevensons hatched the concept late last year after Kim was recruiting students to her community college from area high school programs and discovered they were desperately in need of engines to use for instruction.

One day, Kim was venting about the 1988 Pontiac Fiero that she had learned students in Rochester were using when the pair came up with the idea.

Ryan, who works as the Department of Safety’s garage manager, “was telling me about vehicles that are going for scrap and how little money came from them at the auction, and these different resources, that I’m like, ‘Those would be gold if high school programs could get their hands on those engines,’ ” Kim recalled.

The program could be mutually beneficial, providing a relatively simple way for the Department of Safety to put their totaled police cruisers to good use.

As students prepare to enter the automotive industry, being able to work on modern engines will be a massive boon, Kim said.

“As far as a training purpose for the students to understand how an engine works, how four-stroke theory is, to see what a valve is, to see what a piston is, they can disassemble these engines, learn what all the parts are, learn what they do and put them back together, and it’s a great training tool,” she said.

Ryan Stevenson said he hoped the program could promote interest in pursuing a career in the automotive industry.

“Like many of the trades, there are more positions than there are qualified candidates,” he said. “Hopefully providing these engines is one way to help keep kids engaged and interested in the automotive repair field.”