“My life has not been a straight journey. Job Corps was certainly a help up. It helped me become a productive citizen and a productive person.”
It was in the 1990s that Mikki McGill found herself living in the city of Chicago very much down on her luck.
“I had flunked out of college, but not because I wasn’t college material, and it wasn’t because I was stupid. It was because I just needed support and a way to build other foundations first.”
In need of support and struggling to figure out her next move, Mikki found herself staying at a friend’s house and approaching homelessness. It was here that Mikki found out about Job Corps and decided to give it a shot.
She attended the Joliet Job Corps center in Illinois, where she graduated and then transferred to the Hubert H. Humphrey Job Corps Center in Minnesota for advanced training with the Transportation Communications Union.
“I was able to thrive and to focus and learn some valuable skills on my way to graduation. And, when I was in Job Corps, I had role models and mentors. Women who were mothers to me. And taught me things that I hadn’t picked up on my own, or from my own mother.”
Thanks to her education from Job Corps, Mikki is now a role model too. Currently, she is a mediator with Great River Mediations, a company she started because of her passion to support others. Mikki has performed 50 mediations in civil, harassment, and family contexts. She is often observed by students at the University of Minnesota and Mitchell Hamline as a part of their education.
“It’s a business I started because I love mediation and being able to support people. People who are going through transition, people who are going through difficulty. I’ve been through that, so I know what it’s like. And a lot of the reason I’m here now is because of the path I took through Job Corps.”
Graduated from Job Corps in: 1992 Employer: Red River Mediations Hometown: Chicago Notes:
Source: MTC