CHEROKEE, N.C. — Protecting North Carolina's forests isn’t a job for the faint of heart.
It requires long hours and hard labor, but it’s an important job to keep our forests free of too much debris, keeping fire chances low year-round and ensuring they continue to provide renewable resources.
A USDA Forest Service program funded by the Department of Labor is taking aim at younger people, specifically underserved high schoolers with a lot of potential.
The Job Corps program is the nation's largest residential, educational and career technical training program that prepares economically disadvantaged youth, aged 16 to 24, for productive employment.
There are three job corps civilian conservation centers in North Carolina. The Schenck CCC is on Pisgah National Forest, the Lyndon B. Johnson CC is on the Nantahala National Forest, and the Oconaluftee is located in Cherokee, on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The centers are 24/7 facilities where the students are housed. Students are trained in various trades.
At Oconaluftee, job trainings offered are forestry and fire, electrical, building construction and CNA. While learning their trades, students can also take the driver's education and GED programs. Medical and dental care is available, as well as mental health support.
The students are given opportunities to do paid fire assignments, and job opportunities off-center. They’re required to save 95% of their earnings.
Program coordinators and instructors help with job placement before and after graduation.
"Part of the program is finding students that are passionate about what they want to do and pushing them in a direction, so that they can reach their goals,” said Forestry and Fire Trade Instructor John Kleciak. “My passion is their passion and it kind of follows suit 360."
Kleciak finds his job meaningful and fulfilling. Seeing students succeed and want to succeed drives him.
“It wasn't always the best,” forestry and fire student Rahim Hutchins said of his childhood. “I've always wanted more for myself and my family.”
He grew up in Tampa, Florida and it was just his mother and siblings around. Hutchins dropped out of high school to work and help his family.
He said that because he did not have many people in his life to look up to, it was hard for him to believe in himself.
He learned about the Job Corps program through a former coworker at Walmart. Hutchins had always had the dream of becoming a firefighter. When he learned he could possibly do it for free, he applied immediately.
“I feel like for those that look up to me, if they saw me do it, they will believe enough in themselves that they can do it as well,” Hutchins said of his younger siblings.
When he was accepted, Hutchins chose to train as a wildland firefighter. He calls the experience exhilarating. Hutchins is now certified to fight wildfires, and licensed to fight fires for the Forest Service.
“Once I got the opportunity and I saw that the Job Corps program can actually help me obtain my dreams, I gave it everything I had,” Hutchins said.
He was even able to get his high school diploma while at Oconaluftee, something he had given up on thinking was possible. Hutchins graduated in 2020.
"What’s so special about the program is it doesn’t matter who you are, what race, what nationally, what gender, whatever," Hutchins said.
He’s felt accepted for who he is every step of the way.
Hutchins is graduating from the Oconaluftee center and is heading to Montana to begin his advanced firefighter training.
More than 500 people have graduated from programs at Oconaluftee since 2015. Hutchins is now one of them.