At breakfast with the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce a few months ago, a student wielding a sprayer demonstrated how to fireproof a building. Najese Hood said later that when he finishes training as a plasterer at Keystone Job Corps Center, he wanted to work with a construction company before setting up his own firm. Another student, Elijah Thiam, had nearly finished the medical assistant training but planned to keep living at Keystone for the next two years while earning a nursing degree at Luzerne County Community College.
The plans of Hood, Thiam and hundreds of other students became uncertain Thursday when the U.S. Department of Labor said it would pause operations by June 30 at 99 Job Corps centers operated by contractors nationwide.
In Northeast Pennsylvania, more than 700 students attend Keystone Job Corps in Drums, Butler Twp., Luzerne County and Red Rock Job Corp in Lopez, Colley Twp., Sullivan County, which operate through a joint contract between the Labor Department and Adams and Associates.
Students 16 to 24 study for careers in healthcare, construction and office work from among programs offered at the centers, which also provide opportunities to finish their high school diplomas, receive on-the-job-training, line up military careers or go to college.
While the House of Representatives has approved President Donald Trump’s budget proposal that defunds Job Corps, the centers could remain open if the Senate restored funding and the money survived negotiations to reconcile the two bills.
Mary Malone, president and CEO of the Hazleton chamber, said the federal government has paid for training that students wouldn’t finish if the centers close abruptly. The centers also provided a safe environment for students who had been abused or estranged from families.
“Some of the kids are young, under 18, and are homeless so there’s nowhere to send them back,” Malone said.
While serving students, Keystone and Red Rock also pumped $50 million annually into the economy of Northeast Pennsylvania.
The centers buy food, supplies, repairs and other goods through 266 businesses, 61% of which are in Pennsylvania and 31% in the Northeast region.
Keystone pays Butler Twp. $259,000 a year just for wastewater treatment from the 40 buildings on its 123-acre campus.
Together, Keystone and Red Rock employ 357 people.
While Adams and Associates has told its employees not to comment about the recent developments, Cal Herring, a retiree, said many of his former colleagues at Keystone could have earned more elsewhere.
“It was the desire to provide youths with opportunity that drove those fine people,” he said.
During his 26 years at Keystone, Herring coordinated the office assistant program, taught carpentry, did public relations and oversaw the college program while his wife, a registered nurse, taught health occupations for 24 years.
“A program that does so much for the youth of America is being chipped away. It’s very disheartening,” Herring said. “It breaks my heart.”
When deciding to pause operations, the Labor Department called the Job Corps, which began in 1965, a “failed experiment” and said campuses were expensive and violent. A transparency report the department issued in April said Job Corps spent an average of $80,284 a year per student and students earned an average of $16,695 after leaving.
National Job Corps Association, which sought a temporary restraining to keep open the 99 centers on Tuesday, said the Labor Department report was based on data from 2023-24 when pandemic restrictions had depressed enrollment and added to costs. The cost per student was $34,301, according to a report from the Trump’s first term. Enrollment would have been higher, the association said, if the department hadn’t stopped screening new students in March.
The report lists costs per enrollment at $28,247 for Keystone and $57,531 for Red Rock, but lists the yearly cost of operating both centers at $17,259,359 apiece, an apparent error because of it’s unlikely that two centers of different sizes would have identical costs.
A current employee, who asked to anonymous because Adams and Associates doesn’t want workers to speak, said students do get expelled but the center has a zero tolerance for fighting and drug use.
“So many are good kids from bad situations. They just need a chance,” the employee said, adding. “As a taxpayer, I’m proud to support it.”
Keystone Job Corps members Emanuel Diaz, Jayden Mobley and Yesenia Mercado pack hurricane relief donate items into large shipping boxes at Blaise Alexander Mazda of Greater Hazleton to be shipped to aid hurricane victims on Thursday Oct. 24, 2024.(John Haeger / Staff Photographer)
Students at Red Rock and Keystone last year volunteered for 60,000 hours in the community. Over the years, they’ve built picnic shelters at local parks and installed benches on the Hazleton Rail Trail that Herring now oversees.
Hazleton City Council member Tony Colombo said masonry students helped him make a memorial to 9/11 at Holy Rosary Church after the attacks. Over the years, they’ve stocked food pantries and packaged and delivered meals that Hazleton Helps, a group Colombo leads, provides to older residents at holidays.
While packing supplies onto trucks for delivery to hurricane victims with Colombo this fall, a student from Keystone, Yesenia Mercado, noticed a man slumped near a van and called 911.
“They’re more than happy to jump in with whatever they can do,” Colombo said.
Every April, Job Corps students have joined the highway cleanup that the chamber organizes and also helped the chamber move to new headquarters.
This month, the chamber started a petition to save the Job Corps and asked members to advocate for the program with members of Congress.
U.S. Reps. Dan Meuser, R-9, and Rob Bresnahan, R-8, who both attended the chamber’s breakfast with the Keystone students in March, said in statements that they know the Job Corps centers do good work.
Bresnahan said he is determined to work with the centers and keep them open while Meuser said he “understands the budgetary reasoning” but is committed to “initiatives that empower our workforce, strengthen our economy, and provide opportunities for all Pennsylvanians.”
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman said Job Corps prepared thousands of Pennsylvanians for careers. “I don’t understand why anyone would want to gut such a life-changing program,” he said in a statement.
Sen. Dave McCormick did not reply to an email sent to his office.
Malone said the federal government wants to shift Job Corps, like Federal Emergency Management Administration, to the states.
“This is worse,” she said, “because these are young people’s lives.”
Originally Published: June 3, 2025 at 4:39 PM EDT