Feb. 10—MEDINA — The path to a career in the trades looks quite different for each student who steps onto the Iroquois Job Corps Center campus.

For some students, such as Rochester native Jaeil Perez, it provides them with a crucial change of scenery.

“I just thought to myself, ‘I can’t stay there no more. I’m going to be stuck there, I’m not going to make it out.’ So I left and now I’m doing this,” Perez said.

Perez said he saw attending Iroquois Job Corps’ pre-apprenticeship electrical program as the way to get out of the rough upbringing he faced in his hometown.

“I wanted to get out of my environment and try something new and become something with myself. I felt like becoming an electrician was the route I should take,” Perez said.

Perez is one of 115 students currently enrolled and resides at the center in Medina.

It is one of 120 centers across the country that offers free career training and education where students gain experience to begin a career or apprenticeship, advance to higher education, or join the military.

Even though every student falls between the ages of 16 and 24, their backgrounds and career paths are significantly more varied.

“If you were to ask what the average job corps student is, there isn’t one,” Admissions Services manager Luke Kantor said. “One student could be 23 years old, they’ve already gone through college, they’ve been working jobs and looking for training. Somebody might be 16 or 17, both of their parents (are no longer in their lives) and they’re living on grandma’s couch trying to figure something out while going to school.”

By the time students graduate, however, Kantor said each student strives to achieve one of the three E’s: education, enlistment, or employment.

Whether it’s a career in construction or healthcare, students at the center will undertake both hands-on work and traditional classroom studies in order to get their training and treatment requirements to be certified in their trade.

“It’s like a college campus, but instead of going to English 101 or U.S. history, you’re (learning) trades. So they’re swinging hammers, turning wrenches, or drawing blood,” Kantor said.

Most programs at the center take between 10-12 months to complete.

During that time, students at the center will also volunteer their newly acquired skills to various local projects.

“We do a lot of projects out in the community as well. Our brick mason students recently did retaining walls at a cemetery. Our carpentry students were just over at PAWS, an animal shelter place out in Rochester, building houses external houses for them,” Kantor said.

“Which is awesome because it doesn’t cost them anything and for us, that’s a good opportunity for the students to go out in the community and (see) why they’re doing this and what that end goal is.”

In addition to helping secure both union and non-union job placements, Job Corps also assists students in obtaining their diploma, their driver’s license, stable housing and/or reliable transportation.

Job Corps student Javen Feliciano, a Boston, Massachusetts native, is nearing graduation after spending about a year at the Iroquois Center in the carpentry program.

“I really wanted a change. I remember trying to work on my education since 2016. I thought it was a good opportunity to come here and get my trade education and my license,” Feliciano said.

As he prepares to wrap up his commitments in the classroom, he also has a job in his field off campus. He said working while still being a student gives him the opportunity to save up for a car and apartment after he graduates.

Throughout his time at the Job Corps Center, he said that the most rewarding part of his experience was working with his teachers and peers.

“I’d say it’s just interacting with everybody. To be truthful, I wasn’t really much of a people person. So I had to break out of my comfort zone too.”

Looking into the future, center director Dennis Essom said they are in the midst of their “build-up phase” as Niagara County has recently been reintroduced into their recruitment zone.

He believes that as enrollment at the center continues to grow, so will the demand for new workers in various trades.

“Our construction and medical trades are in much higher demand than they were 10 years ago because of the retiring workforce. A lot of people at retirement age are continuing to work because they don’t have anybody to replace them,” Essom observed.