Saebra Grannis was working on earning her high school diploma at the Brunswick Job Corps until the federal government abruptly decided to close the job training program that is helping more than 200 young adults in Coastal Georgia.
On May 29, the head of the Brunswick center received notice to cease all activities and remove all students from housing provided by the organization by June 6. This week, a federal judge granted a two-week temporary block on the order.
The Brunswick office is one of 99 contractor-operated centers facing the end of its vocational training in 11 trades, diploma certificates and stable housing. At least 25 of the students in Glynn County will be homeless if federal funding ceases for the program that started in 1964 to support low-income youth.
Hopes for the future, dashed
Grannis, 17, came to Brunswick from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a family bereft of resources. She stayed with her grandmother for a short period before moving to Georgia to live with her mother and her mother’s husband.
She suffers from several neurodivergent disabilities, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and attention deficit disorder, which impaired her academic abilities. Job Corps was the place she found to get support to complete her high school studies and learn a trade as well.
“My family wasn’t the wealthiest of the bunch. We weren’t comfortable, but we were getting by, and the education there is around three years behind. So education, schooling and housing-wise, I was struggling, as well as my family,” she said.
Grannis has spent this year completing the classes she had failed in her previous high school. She planned to take courses to become a certified nursing assistant eventually. Job Corps provided on-site work experience at a local hospice facility as well. When completing those courses, Grannis hoped to attend mortuary school or even college.
With the uncertainty over funding, she now doesn’t know what will come next for her this summer.
“I just want to know, why? What’s being done wrong, and what could we do to change people’s minds? Because this is so much more than a program. It’s people’s lives, futures and opportunities,” she said.
A way out
Destiny McCullough, 23, also found direction and purpose in the Job Corps after dropping out of Georgia State University and working part-time jobs as an Uber and DoorDash driver as a way to help her mother and three siblings make ends meet.
“I tried the college route, but college became so expensive, and I wasn’t blessed enough to be able to get scholarships or anything, because I was taking care of my siblings. So I didn’t have the best grades in school,” she said.
McCullough is a second-generation Job Corps student. Her mother received her own General Educational Development (GED) certificate from the program as well as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) certificate.
McCullough discovered the Brunswick-area program through a Google search and applied for placement in the summer of 2024, hoping to get training that would lead to a job with the Department of Homeland Security.
Now, with funding cuts threatening to disrupt her studies, she is worried that she will end up moving back to Gainesville, Florida, and be forced to take another dead-end and demoralizing job.
For her, Job Corps has been life-changing, not just for her but also for her siblings. “These people really care; they were motivating me,” she said of the instructors and administrators. “They push me to do better. They push for me to be great. They encourage me,” she said.
‘Back to being stagnant’
Cedric King, a 24-year-old Navy veteran, has been a Job Corps student for two months, learning how to become an HVAC technician after securing an apprenticeship on Jekyll Island. He enlisted right after high school and left service without tangible skills that he could transfer to the civilian workforce, he said.
He came to Brunswick from Austin, Texas, after hearing a pitch from Job Corps recruiters.
“I had just completed my Naval contract with the military, and you know, as a veteran, you look for ways to ease back into the workforce to feel normal again,” he said. “Job Corps was my way of demilitarizing myself and to fit back into society as we see it today, not just for the educational benefits, but because it guarantees college placement.”
The relationships he has formed through the center have been an anchor for him personally and professionally, he said.
“I really felt that I fit in, as soon as I got there, you have the staff pushing you to do better, talking to you to ease your mind, counseling you through the tough situations that you think are tough at the time,” he said.
If funding is cut, King is luckier than some of the students. He has some veterans’ benefits, but he will be among those facing homelessness. A side business he runs isn’t enough to pay rent, he said.
“Luckily, I do have a little business on the side that can bring me some liquid funds. But it’s not enough to put me exactly where I want to be in life,” King said.
Her life’s work
The looming closure would curtail the life’s work of Mary Geoghegan.
“We never suspected that they would say, close the door and send the kids home. Never, ever it has been around for 61 years”, she said.“We’ve been threatened before, but we are always able to collaborate and come up with a good solution and make the program a little better. Something can always be better, but to destroy a working program, it’s a working model. We are a pipeline.”
Among the highlights of her career was her time running the Miami center, which, under her leadership, ranked top in the percentage of students earning a high school diploma, improving in reading or math, and obtaining a trade credential. With that success under her belt, the Job Corps contractor there moved her to Brunswick three years ago. In that time, she said the Glynn County programs have jumped from a low-performing office to ranked 10th in the nation.
“The center was in need of a lot of improvement,” she said.
If the decision to close the center is not reversed, the surrounding community will face an immediate hit, she said. Job Corps puts $19 million into the local economy through the employment of 130 staff members, vendors and subcontractors, she said.
What happens next?
Geoghegan wants local residents to write letters of support for the program to U.S. Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter and Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. She also asks that supporters send letters to the Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
“If you can appreciate the challenges they’ve had, then you can appreciate Job Corps, because these young folks need to be engaged and trained and able to make a good living, not the minimum wage,” she said. “They are not the folks that had the privilege of going to a private school and going right on to college. They need preparation.”
This story was provided by WABE content partner The Current.
