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Welcome to the Joliet Job Corps Center, New Students
Tags: "Joliet Job Corps Center" | new students | Welcoming committee

Welcome to the Joliet Job Corps Center, New Students

Clockwise: Donald Jones; Donald speaks to the new students; students Donald Jones, Terrance Boyd, Xavier Gallegos and DAntonio Hillard.

Joliet Job Corps Center student Donald Jones tells his story to the group of new students.

Not long after Donald Jones arrived at the Joliet Job Corps Center, he had an idea.

He was walking through the Center and noticed a group of new students who had just arrived. He remembered his own first day, and the things people told him.

“People told me good and bad things about Job Corps. And I figured instead of being good and bad, why not be all good?” he said.

The best people to deliver that positive message might be other students who also were re-cent arrivals, he thought. “Being a new student, I figured it might be good to have another new student’s perspective on what Job Corps is like,” he explained.

And that was the beginning of the new student welcoming committee.

After getting the OK from Social Development Director Alicia Grangent and Counselor John Atkinson, Donald even bought snacks to give to the newcomers.

For the past few weeks, Donald and a group of his peers have been meeting with the new students on Tuesday, right after they arrive. They take turns talking about their lives and what brought them to Joliet.

Student Derek Peters came to the Center be-cause he wanted to change his life for the better. He knew he could make that happen at Job Corps.

“Job Corps is a good decision,” he told the newcomers. “It’s the best decision I’ve made in my life, basically.”

Terrance Boyd told them he had been out of school for a few years and wanted to make a change. Job Corps offered that opportunity.

“I kind of decided it was the right path for me to better myself as a person,” he told them.

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