Week of June 5, 2025

From the editor’s desk

The Sierra Nevada Job Corps graduation on Tuesday afternoon featured many of the hallmarks of an ordinary spring commencement—jubilant smiles; flowing, blue gowns; proud affirmations from administrators; mortarboards with glitter-pen pronouncements like “On to the next chapter”; and gratitude to padres and abuelos for their constant amor.

In other ways, it was not such a run-of-the-mill affair. 

At the Stead campus, students ages 16-24—many of them at-risk and without family support, many from out of town—had been working on trade certifications and high school degrees until the Labor Department ordered Job Corps programs closed nationwide.

A May 31 email announcement from Leslie Mix, the local program’s business relations specialist, read, “We have been given a week and a day to return the students to wherever they can go. Some have nowhere to go, and abusive situation(s) or worse. We have just under 300 students to arrange something for. One week.”

Given this news, in addition to all the smiles and mortarboards, there were a few things I had never seen at a graduation before: 

Former NBA star Lamar Odom spoke a brief word of encouragement, then said (presumably to the Job Corps students who were not graduating that day), “I know a lot of you are going to be without a school opportunity when you leave here” and told them they’d be welcome at Odom Ascension Academy in Las Vegas.

Two employees of the Eddy House, Reno’s shelter for people who are young and unhoused, were there—COO Jillian Keller and community liaison Kessa Lee.

“We are here because we’re aware that there are a number of people in our age range of 18 to 24 who are going to be unhoused very soon,” Keller told me after the ceremony. She said her group was rounding up extra hygiene items, food, underwear, cots, pillows and staffers to accommodate a sudden influx that she estimated might be between 10 and 40. As the graduates dispersed post-ceremony, Keller talked with Job Corps staff members on the lawn to gather more intel about her potential new clients’ specific needs.

Representatives from the offices of Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen were in attendance as well. Rosen herself was on the Senate floor that afternoon, criticizing the Trump administration’s decision to dismantle Job Corps and calling for the decision to be reversed. 

Also that day, a trade group representing contractors that operate Job Corps programs sued the Trump administration, saying the program is federally mandated and closing it would be illegal.

Yesterday, a U.S. judge blocked the closure—at least temporarily. According to Reuters, a hearing is scheduled for June 17.

If the closure is not stopped, Keller would like you to know that summer tends to bring an influx of Eddy House clients to begin with, and that if a Job Corps closure spikes shelter demand further, donations of emergency items like deodorant and travel size shampoos will be very much appreciated. Here’s the group’s Amazon wish list.

Take care,

—Kris Vagner, managing editor