Variety of events offer valuable hands-on job training

Students at the Carl D. Perkins Job Corps Center celebrated the coming of fall with a number of events during the weekend of Oct. 1-2. Students from the construction programs at the center built a float that featured an actual log cabin for the 54th annual Kentucky Apple Festival Parade in Paintsville, KY Oct. 1. Students took home the event’s McIntosh award for their hard work, and an accompanying $750 cash award.

Carpentry Instructor Jeffery Daniels said the money will be used for programming for the students at Perkins Job Corps.

Perkins Job Corps’ Security & Protective Services students were in Prestonsburg that same day, assisting Pro-Fitness with its bike race. Students manned checkpoints throughout the city to ensure bikers’ safety, directed traffic, and handed out water to bikers as they pedaled past.

Then students of the Advanced Training Security & Protective Services program ended the weekend with a far from typical job. Students assisted the East Kentucky EXPO Center in Pikeville, KY with providing event security for the Garden Bros Circus. Students checked patrons as they entered the venue, did safety patrols, and even got to watch over some of the stars of the show – the elephants and camels.