The Gary Job Corps is a critical element to the local workforce. They train the youth to do many trades that are essential in order to maintain to everyday life as we know it. And in the week leading up to Feb. 2, coined Groundhog Job Shadow Day, job corps nationwide will be sending students to shadow employees working the jobs that they will one day do themselves.
To focus public awareness on the job corps and the things it does for the community, Hays County Commissioners Court proclaimed Jan. 29 to Feb. 2, 2024 as National Job Corps Groundhog Week at the regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday. According to jobcorps.gov, Feb. 2 is Groundhog Job Shadow Day, which is a special opportunity to educate employers about Job Corps. The tradition began in 1999 and was an initiative to engage students in employment settings. Student shadows are paired with workplace mentors to demonstrate connections between academic and technical skills.
“The Gary Job Corps Center in San Marcos has made a positive and lasting difference in the lives of thousands of countless young Texans, and during the week of Jan 29 to Feb. 2, 2024 proud staff, students and reporters are gathering to mark a shared history of important work and worthwhile accomplishment,” the proclamation stated. “While the no cost career education technical trainings that are administered by the U.S. Department of Labor opened in March 1965. Its beginnings originated in the public announcement Lyndon B Johnson made at his alma mater in Nov. 1964. With that commitment, the activated Gary Army Air Field was transformed into, what is today, the largest of 125 job corps centers in the nation and more than 900 male and female students living and learning on a 775 acre campus.”
Gary Job Corps Center Director Angela Rackley- Meadows thanked the court for the support of the local job corps.
“I want to thank you for the warm welcome that I have received. I have been here since July as the Center Director at Gary,” Rackley-Meadows said. “We are doing wonderful things.”
Randolph Goodman, Gary Job Corps community relations coordinator, said he had been with the center “longer than dirt.” He also thanked the commissioners for their continued support.
“Thank you for allowing our students to assist with the car show over this weekend,” Goodman said. “Thank you for all the time that you have been totally supportive of what we do.”
Gary Job Corps offers a wide variety of vocational training.
“Gary Job Corps provides people ages 16 to 24 with opportunities to acquire skills that enable them to become more employable and independent. Gary students can earn high school equivalency credentials and certified high school diplomas, receive vocational instruction in 19 occupations in such fields as health, office administration, security, construction and manufacturing and qualify for financial assistance to pursue higher education,” the proclamation stated. “The Gary Job Corps center, now one of four in Texas, has seen much change over the course of the last five decades, but it has kept focus on its original mission: boosting productivity, civic engagement and prosperity by giving a hand to young people in need.”
Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra said he served as a liaison on the Gary Job Corps committee for years, and he’s been honored to speak at some of the graduation ceremonies.
“I am a supporter of all things Gary. I am just so thankful to Gary, because they help folks,” Becerra said “My hope is that more people realize just how valuable Gary Job Corps is to our state and all of those organizations nationwide, because they help us grab very qualified, very passionate, potential- filled individuals, youth most importantly, and put them on a path to help in ways that we don’t even think about.”
Hays County Commissioner Walt Smith said that the job corps is a valuable asset to the local workforce.
“I wish that more kids would learn those vocational skills,” Smith said. “That’s really where we need the workforce.”
Learn more about Gary Job Corps at gary.jobcorps. gov.
