More staff from the Blue Ridge Job Corps wanted to speak to Rep. Morgan Griffith’s staffer Thursday in Marion, but a Rapid Response Team was at the educational institution to help employees prepare for unemployment while they’re trying to help students prepare for their uncertain future.
Jeanette Winston was one of the BRJC staffers who did come and told the gathering of like-minded citizens and Griffith’s representative that the proposed closure “just breaks my heart.”
If BRJC is closed, she said, many of the students will be going to nothing. About 12%, she said, are homeless. Yet, at BRJC, those students have a home, a bed.
“I need answers,” Winston said. “I am angry.”
Job Corps centers were established to help 16-to-24-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds get an education, training, and life skills.
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On May 29, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that it was shutting down all contractor-operated Job Corps Centers of which BRJC is one. Initially, the Labor Department said the centers were to be closed by June 30. Then, it was announced that students had to vacate the centers by June 3, then the date was extended to June 12.
Then, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction to halt the closure. Another hearing in that case took place Tuesday, June 17, after press time.
Jennifer Stout, a BRJC mental health counselor, has witnessed the students’ tears and panic. Some, she said, declared, “I can’t go back to where I came from.”
At BRJC, Stout said, they find a home, support, an education and eventually a job and a place to go.
Stout said she can’t understand how the Administration says it needs to get people into the workforce but then cuts this program.
A Labor Department news release said, “The department’s decision aligns with the President’s FY 2026 budget proposal and reflects the Administration’s commitment to ensure federal workforce investments deliver meaningful results for both students and taxpayers.”
Heather Goodpasture, who also works at BRJC, said, “I’m angry. I’m so angry that the Department of Labor… our government would treat people this way.”
Some centers, she said, sent kids packing using trash bags for their belongings.
On their own, Goodpasture said some of the students wouldn’t get an opportunity to pull themselves up.
Multiple citizens called on Griffith to issue a public statement about the plan for Job Corps.
Tom Hower, who had written Griffith about the BRJC situation, said he’d received a response that said, “I agree it would have been nice to have had a longer notice from the executive branch.”
“Where is your voice,” Joanne Groseclose asked.
Debbie Rogers told of her late husband, Joe, working at BRJC for 30 years and the lasting bonds formed with students. One of those students earned her first certification at BRJC, went on to WCC, and then earned a bachelor’s degree. Today, she’s retired but still calls Rogers every Saturday morning.
That former student credits BRJC with her foundation, said Rogers. She’s returned twice to encourage students to keep working.
Bill Huber noted that the students are poor and many aren’t white. Those facts, he said, put a target on the BRJC.
Huber urged concerned citizens to gather, plan, and get involved. As well, he said voters should support candidates with a good heart who seek elected office.
Annie Saunders, a BRJC staffer, shared a poem she’d written about the experience. Titled “A Thousand Whispers,” the title inspiring passage read: “You knocked me down, /But though I’m on the ground, /I won’t lie down forever,’/So you better watch out.”
“I’m coming for you,/And I won’t back down./My voice may be weak, But a thousand whispers,/Hold the power,/To transform into a shout.”
Several speakers addressed other topics.
Dr. Tony Graham, a psychiatrist, who worked at the Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute and Mount Rogers Community Services, expressed his concerns about Medicaid funding being cut.
Crisis center and rural hospitals, Graham said, depend on Medicaid.
He urged people to pay attention. “Policy details matter,” he said.
Rather than cut, Graham said Medicaid funding needs to be increased.
Rose Likins, Smyth County Public Library director, addressed cuts to funding for digital navigators and the local library’s model of providing one-on-one training to help citizens learn to use technology.
Seventy percent of local residents are only accessing the Internet via cell phones, Likins said.
Now, she said, funding for these digital navigator programs have been eliminated.
Addressing Griffith’s staffer, Likins said, “His rural constituents are most left behind.”