ICYMI: McDonald Rivet Stands with Flint Job Corps Students
"The administration shutting down Job Corps and kicking our kids to the curb without any warning is damaging… unacceptable, and we know that our kids deserve better."
FLINT— On Saturday, Congresswoman Kristen McDonald Rivet (MI-08) continued her fight to protect Job Corps by hosting a rally alongside community leaders and Job Corps students who attend the Flint Genesee campus. The event highlighted the impact Job Corps has had on young people in mid-Michigan and how the region would lose out if it is shut down.
Jobs Corps is a federal program that provides job training and education for disadvantaged youth, setting them up with the skills they need to find a job and have a successful career. The Flint Genesee campus served nearly 150 students. On May 29, the Department of Labor announced it would pause operations at Job Corps centers across the country and ordered students to leave campus.
At the press conference, Congresswoman McDonald Rivet said, “We offer [kids] a future through the Job Corps program. This exact campus where we are now standing is a gem of our community, uplifting kids who really need it most. Kids are learning new skills, working hard, and doing everything we ask them to do. The administration shutting down Job Corps and kicking our kids to the curb without any warning is damaging… It’s unacceptable, and we know that our kids deserve better.”
Stacey Littlejohn Jr., a Flint Job Corps center alumnus, said, “Job Corps opened their arms and gave me a second chance… These kids, they don’t have nowhere to go after this. This is their safety, this is their structure, this is the way they learn, this is their resource… If you take that away, you take their whole lives away. And it’s just going to be a lot of what-ifs — what they could have been.”
Pastor Janard Lakes said, “As I worked here for over eight years, I’ve seen the importance of how Job Corps has had an impact on our youth… It was able to offer vision, hope, and direction to hopeless situations.”
Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley said, “Since the mid-1960s, Job Corps have been places that communities like Flint [rely on] to be able to make sure that we can put kids and young people on the right trajectory to be productive citizens… We’re working on behalf of these families, not only here in the city of Flint but throughout our nation.”
Saturday’s event was Congresswoman McDonald Rivet’s latest effort to defend Job Corps since the Department of Labor’s announced pause. She has called on Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer to reverse the decision and restore funding in a letter co-signed by Representatives Hillary Scholten (MI-03), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), and Shri Thanedar (MI-13). She also joined a letter supporting Job Corps signed by 199 Democratic and Republican members of Congress.