BECKLEY, WV (WOAY)- Job Corps is a program geared to educate young people for successful careers and be productive members of society. This is a free program for anyone ages 16 to 24.
It offers tuition free hands-on training housing, medical, and living allowance to help these young people get on their feet.
Many who use this program are disadvantaged, like those from broken homes, foster care, abused, homeless, and those who just need a second chance. Job Corps gives students a safe haven to start building a new life for themselves.
Jobs Corps of Charleston offers 7 different trades at their location, however, students have the opportunity to try other trades with different locations.
“So our trades that we offer is HVAC, Carpentry, Facility Maintenance, Office Administration, Medical Assistant, Network Cabling and Medical Office. So those are the trades that we offer,” explained Malayna Eubanks, Director of Outreach and Admission Career Training Services at Job Corps. “If for some reason a student doesn’t like a trade that we offer, they can go to another center, where there’s more different trades. There’s a variety of trades offered at all the Job Corps centers. Just recently, they actually started an aviation program that’s happening out of Texas, the Job Corps in Texas.”
Recently this program has been put onto the chopping block as it is one of the programs that President Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ intends to cut. They’re reaching out to our congressional leaders to help save this program as it aligns with Trump’s agenda for the workforce, according to Eubanks.
“As of now, Trump wants a lot of employment to enroll in apprenticeships. And we have apprenticeship programs like for paint and carpentry. So we are in line with what Trump’s agenda is. So cutting us is hurting the workforce,” explained Eubanks. “The bottom line, this program saves lives, period.”
