Joliet Job Corps opens doors for inside look at youth career program

The Joliet Job Corps Center opened its doors to the community Thursday to provide an inside look at the federal training program and the people it serves.

The Joliet facility is one of more than 120 such centers in the country that provides training for specific careers in a dormitory setting for students with low-income backgrounds.

Jayson Green, 19, was homeless and living out of a car when he signed up for the Job Corps.

“I can honestly say this program saved my life,” Green said as he and other students told their stories of what brought them to Job Corps.

Green said he dropped out of high school to work and help support his family, a plan that did not pan out. He is studying culinary arts at Job Corps, where students also are required to take classes to get high school diplomas if they do not have them.

Shanya Anderson of Joliet did graduate from high school and went on to college where, she said, she “messed up” in the first semester.

“This program has changed everything about me fundamentally,” Anderson said.

Under the more structured environment of Job Corps, Anderson is completing the certified nursing assistant program and plans to go to Joliet Junior College in January to begin her studies to become a registered nurse.

The Joliet Job Corps Center serves people between the ages of 16 and 24. It is one of two Job Corps Centers in Illinois. The other is in Chicago, and the Joliet center serves most of Illinois outside of Cook County.

“I can honestly say this program saved my life.”

—  Jayson Green, 19, Joliet Job Corps student

Students whose homes are more than 15 miles away from the center are required to live there. They can’t have cars, and their freedom to leave the site is restricted. They answer to daily roll calls.

The Job Corps is free to its students. The program is overseen by the U.S. Department of Labor, although individual centers are run by contractors.

Job Corps stints run anywhere between six months and two years depending on how much high school education students need to complete.

The Joliet center is considered a basic training site offering programs in seven career categories: office administration, pharmacy technicians, certified nursing assistants, security services, cement and masonry, building construction and culinary arts.

Joliet Job Corps develops partnerships with area employers so students can gain work experience while in training.

Students in the culinary arts program work at local restaurants and for the Joliet Slammers’ food and beverage division.

Culinary arts instructor Elaina Alexander said she prepares her students for the variety of challenges they will face.

Students are required to wash dishes manually and to use an automated dish washer to prepare future chefs for days on the job when no one is available to wash dishes.

“This industry is not easy,” Alexander said. “I’m hard on them. I have to be. I don’t want them to go to their first job and think, ‘Oh, this is going to be easy.’”

Joliet Job Corps is located at 1101 Mills Road on what previously was the campus for the old Joliet East High School.

The center enrolls 135 students but is authorized for a capacity of 255.

Registration was put on hold during a management transition, but new management is looking to bring in more students again.

“Right now, we’re working on enrollment,” said Director Cashanna Armstrong, who arrived this week.

“This is an opportunity,” Armstrong told people at the open house as she talked about Job Corps. “It’s not just a second change or a last chance. It’s a wonderful opportunity.”