The defunct Ladd Center in Exeter will soon be put to use once again: this time giving hundreds of troubled Rhode Island youths a new shot at life.
The center will be the site of a $15 million renovation, paid for by the federal government, to give Rhode Island its own Job Corps program, in which ‘at risk’ young people will learn the vocational and academic skills they need to re-energize their lives.
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Nationwide, the federal program has served some two million young people aged 16 to 24 over the last 35 years. But Rhode Island has always been left out.
But on Jan. 15, U.S. Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman announced that Rhode Island would finally get its own center, which will serve 250 to 300 students annually.
The center is expected to be built within the next two years. The department will fund its $4 million to $5 million yearly budget.
“It’s been a very long road,” U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. said of his effort to get Rhode Island its own center. “I just think it’s great news.”
The news has been a long time coming. Asked why Rhode Island was left without a program other states have enjoyed for years, neither Herman nor Reed nor Gov. Lincoln Almond could say.
Now, the Ocean State is one of only four states that does not have the program, along with New Hampshire, Delaware, and Wyoming.
Reed and others are pleased that that stigma will be removed – and that the state’s troubled young people will have access to the federal program, which puts its kids to work and teaches them skills many local manufacturers say they desperately need.
The federal program serves about 68,000 young people annually.
According to Reed’s office, some 16,000 youths in Rhode Island are poor, while Providence’s high school drop out rate is the 10th highest in the nation.
The participants selected to join the program must swear off old problems. They must pledge to stay sober and apply themselves. Those who fail to do these things are removed. Students typically stay for seven months. About half these students who stay this long will earn their GED, officials said.
Students are given a $40 stipend every two weeks.
U.S. Rep. Robert Weygand, D-R.I., said the state’s economy needs more skilled trade workers, and that the new Jobs Corps center could help alleviate its shortage of them.
That sentiment was echoed by Bob Miniutti, president and chief executive officer of Oracle Lens Manufacturing Corp. in Warwick, who said his company has trouble finding workers with the skills he’s looking for. Though the state needs a comprehensive effort to solve the problem, he said, the Job Corps program is at least a good start.
The department’s decision to award Rhode Island funds this year came in part because Reed managed to get language added to a U.S. Senate spending bill that gave states that did not have a Job Corps program preference. In all, Congress approved $33 million in 1998 to build three to five new Job Corps centers.
