Article September 27, 1969 Issue

Signs of the Times

Herman B. Teeter

Together

Reprinted from the article "A Chance to Make It" by Herman B. Teeter, Together, December, 1968.

The Job Corps is a program of human renewal run by the federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and designed to educate and teach marketable skills to disadvantaged young people who want to reenter the mainstream of American life as jobholders and useful citizens. ... "Such youngsters—and there are some 1,200 coming out of Job Corps training each week—do need help to get started on the right way of life," says B. J. Roberts, JACS [Joint Action in Community Service] executive director. ...

In Atlanta, a leading attorney takes time off from his busy law practice to counsel returning corpsmen. Ministers, businessmen, social workers, college students, government employees, housewives, retired executives—these and many others are among an increasing number of JACS volunteers on call "at the drop of a hat" to assist corpsmen in taking full advantage of their training. ... JACS, a nonprofit organization, was conceived in 1967 through the mutual concern of Job Corps officials and the Inter-Religious Committee against Poverty, composed of Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant leaders. Each of the seven regional JACS offices maintains a list of local volunteers ready to reach out a helping hand. JACS limits its work to male Job Corps graduates, but a similar, unrelated program, Women in Community Service (WICS), provides help for girls. ...

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