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.”
