Since 2001, Trapper Creek Job Corps students and staff have joined arms with the Ravalli County Council on Aging and have logged some pretty impressive statistics. For instance, over the last 13 years more than 700 Trapper Creek students have cumulatively volunteered more than 7,000 hours or 175, 40-hour weeks, totaling 3.3 years of voluntary service to our Bitterroot Valley senior citizens.

But this partnership is about so much more than statistics, it’s about people; people worthy of our respect and our assistance; the statistics just help demonstrate the volume and value of the services volunteered through the years.

As you can see, this is no small or easily accomplished task to pull off every other month; 16,000 pounds of dry goods, canned food items, juices and more; packaged and delivered to 252 senior citizens with need, from Sula to Florence.

Paul Travitz, Executive Director for Council said, “we couldn’t do it without them [Job Corps], we just don’t have the volunteers needed and we can’t ask our seniors to move around these heavy boxes – its hard work.”

In 2012, Trapper Creek Job Corps received the “Outstanding Community Benefit Organization of the Year” award from the Bitterroot Resource Conservation and Development Area, Inc. Their contributions to the community include thousands of community service volunteer hours and contribute tens of thousands of dollars in skilled-labor donations to our Bitterroot Valley non-profit organizations and our National Forests.

Most recently, as a remarkable acknowledgement of Trapper Creek’s value to the community, the Ravalli County Commissioners recently voted to proclaim a day yet named, to be “Trapper Creek Job Corps Day”!