Oneonta Job Corps Center students have partnered with Habitat for Humanity of Otsego County (NY) to make sure a local, non-profit organization meets its deadlines. 

The center’s business and community liaison Victoria White says, most recently about 25 students in the center’s cement mason trade have worked five days a week to meet a construction goal on a Habitat home being built near the northern New York center.

Habitat board member Bruce Downie said, "We knew we could turn to the Job Corps students and staff to help us meet our deadline and that the quality of their work would be superior."  The students provided skills volunteers don't normally have, Downie added.

White said the experience was also great for the students because the on-the-job training provides more than can be taught in a classroom.  Students received a real work experience and learned the responsibility of meeting deadlines and working under various conditions.

Alondo Walsh, a 24-year-old from Kingston, Jamaica, is among the Oneonta students who have been working at the site for about a month.  He has worked at two other Habitat sites in Oneonta during the 19 months he has been with the program and hopes to use his skills working for a union when he graduates.

(06/10/08)

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