Friday afternoon, U.S. Congressional District 2 Congressman Joe Wilson and his South Carolina Special Assistant Preston Grisham toured the Bamberg Job Corps Center.

The tour consisted of visiting various vocational training classrooms and Jerry Brown Dormitory constructed as a VST (Vocational Skills Training) project in 1987 by the Job Corps/HBI (Home Builders Institute) students and dedicated in April of that year by then Congressman Floyd Spence.

“Worker training and education programs are critical to putting Americans back to work and creating jobs,” Rep. Wilson said, “particularly in an uncertain economy, We are committed to a dynamic, results-oriented job training system that will meet workers' needs and help local communities respond to changing labor market conditions.”

As a member of the Congressional Committee on Education and Labor, Wilson is a strong advocate of job training and education. In 1998, Committee Republicans crafted the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) to give job seekers access to job training services, counseling, and labor market information to help them get back on their feet. The Bamberg Job Corps Center is a partner in the area WIA programs.

“Job Corps graduates are particularly good candidates for the assistance that WIA and the One-Stop centers can provide,” said Bamberg Job Corps Center Director Mitra Vazeen.

Although the legislation - and the One-Stop Centers it created to streamline job training - have been a success, “we recognize that more work is needed,” Wilson commented. “In the 111th Congress, we continue pressing for legislation to strengthen and improve America's job training system even further so states and communities can give workers the training they need to find good jobs.”

The Job Corps was initiated as the central program of the Johnson Administration's War on Poverty, part of his domestic agenda known as the Great Society. Sargent Shriver, the first Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, modeled the program on the Depression era Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Established in the 1930s as an emergency relief program, the CCC provided room, board, and employment to thousands of unemployed young people. Though the CCC was discontinued after World War II, Job Corps built on many of its methods and strategies.

As a national, primarily residential, career development program, Job Corps' mission is to attract eligible young people, involve them in a career development services system which begins prior to enrollment and continues through post-center services, assists them in acquiring the skills they need to achieve their career goals and live independently, and to then support them in entering and remaining in meaningful jobs or further education.