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My name is Devante Lockamy.
Michaela Hall.
Jeleesa Furgurson.
Arielle Gonzalez.
Tomasina Brown.
The Pay It Forward program - it's a group of alumni who went out and got leadership
skills.
Job Corps alumni just trying to give back to the groups that they came from.
All alumni feel the same way about Job Corps - you know, that it was a great program,
that it changed our lives, and that we want to continue helping to make sure that the
program does a good job into the future.
And we also want to, you know, kind of offer ourselves to mentor the kids if they need it.
Someone helped all of us.
We all did not make it to where we are on our own.
And the Pay It Forward program is designed to enable people to actually be able to reach
out and say, you know what - I can help you.
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It's neat going to several different centers, and then we showcase two different videos
to show students what racism felt like.
We then have a discussion and then some of the students can relate.
And we use our training as conveners and as leaders.
There's so much more out there and this will be a memory to you all soon, and what you
do here is really important.
We are the generation of change.
We should bring people together, we should be able to talk more to one another.
Judging someone by the way they look is just it's a negative thing.
Every conversation you have is awkward, so why not just have it anyway?
My biggest challenge had to be myself.
I've been in your shoes.
I didn't want to go back to where I was before.
You'll be surprised how far you can go when you push yourself beyond what you can imagine.
The most valuable lesson I learned is to surround yourself with people that have the same goals
as you.
Because it'll be a lot easier to achieve goals when, if you're in with people better - if
you're with people that are rooting for you, versus people that might bring you back a
little.
And you'll encounter that every, in every aspect of life.
What I've learned is that success is not success if you don't have someone to share it with.
You don't want to be on the top by yourself.
Why not pull each other up and create a community of successful people?
And that's what I've learned about Job Corps - it's a community.
Be one.
We are like brothers and sisters in here.
We don't know people until we get to know them.
You've just got to stay positive and stay focused and keep people around you that are
motivated.
If I could tell people in Job Corps anything, I would want them to know that it's just,
it's such a small stepping stone.
I mean two years seems like a lot of time to us because we're young, but we've got a
whole life afterwards that Job Corps can set us up for.
If you don't believe in yourself, like, no one else will.
You know?
So you just have to fight for yourself and it's, like I said, it's good to have a group
of positive people around you but at the end of the day it's ultimately up to you to see
where you want to go.
I changed the people that were around me, I started to surround myself by people - people
that may have different shoes than me, but guess what - we may be walking in the same
path.
Student: You can understand how to walk a mile in their shoes.
Student: Please, peace.
I think that you plant seeds.
And I know when I was here, I sat in lots of presentations and heard other people come
and speak to us, and what happens for me is, a lot of times you hear something someone
says, and then you hear it again and then that third time is like - oh!
You know, the flower starts to bloom and it pops off the ground and, like, you get it!
And so what I hope I'm going is I hope I'm planting seeds and maybe I'm putting a little
sunlight on those seeds, or sprinkling water, so that eventually they'll start to bloom
and they'll get it - they'll hear it from enough people that it clicks and they can
take that information and use it to make their life that much better.
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