Inland Empire Job Corps Center Delivers Thanksgiving Baskets to Muscoy Elementary

Inland Empire Job Corps (IEJC) Center staff and students joined forces to bring a Thanksgiving feast to the less fortunate in the community. Twenty families were adopted from Muscoy Elementary School and provided with Thanksgiving baskets containing turkeys, beans, canned corn, green beans, pasta, potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce and other items. Claudia Lopez of Inland Empire Job Corps shared, "We wanted to bring good spirits and good food to the families in need during these hard times." Workers assembled the Thanksgiving baskets Nov. 19. Then, the next day, Nov. 20, Inland Empire Job Corps students personally delivered each basket to Muscoy Elementary in San Bernardino. According to Lopez, the idea came about during a recent interaction with Muscoy Elementary School Principal Dana Venable. "We talked to her about the idea, and she immediately let us know those specific families that would benefit the most from these baskets," Lopez said. In their first step, IEJC put on a food drive to collect canned goods to create 20 Thanksgiving baskets filled with traditional holiday treats. The goal of this event and many of the other missions of the Inland Empire Job Corps is to appreciate and support the community in various ways. "By participating in this project, the students were able to see the difference they were making by simply helping many families with baskets filled with food and we were able to make this holiday a little easier for those families," Lopez shared. [END] A big component of the Job Corps program is “service learning” training. By focusing on social, political, and cultural issues that are impacting the community, the Job Corps program aims to instill in its students a deeper appreciation for helping others and their community. The goal of the Job Corps program is to get students to become productive and contributing members of their communities and society. For the past 50 years, Job Corps has provided opportunities to more than 3 million economically disadvantaged young Americans. Administered by the U.S. Department of Labor, this voluntary, residential training program offers vocational, academic, and social skills training to students ages 16 through 24 at 125 centers nationwide, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Each year, Job Corps serves approximately 60,000 young people. Job Corps is the nation’s largest and oldest federally funded career training and education program. For more information about the program, call (800) 733-JOBS or visit www.recruiting.jobcorps.gov or http://jobcorps/doleta.gov. For more information, contact: Claudia Lopez – IEJCC Business and Community Liaison – (909) 887-7154 or Lopez.Claudia@jobcorps.org.