Job-Skills Program Is Working for Him, and Vice Versa : Employment: One-year stint in California Conservation Corps turned high school dropout’s life around, he tells group of young adults at recruitment seminar.

A year ago, Edgar Sanchez says, he was a gang-banging, drug-using high school dropout.

That was when he decided to apply for the California Conservation Corps, a statewide yearlong program that teaches 18- to 23-year-olds home fix-up skills that they can use later to repair dilapidated housing in their community.

On Wednesday, dressed in a brown khaki uniform and black steel-toed boots, Sanchez told a group of young adults attending a CCC recruitment seminar how the program taught him valuable job skills and put him on the threshold of earning his General Equivalency Degree.

“I was sick and tired of running the streets, I wanted to make a change,” he told the group. “Because you are here today means you also want to make a change.”

The seminar was held at Santa Ana’s Southwest Senior Center and was part of an effort to get young adults from crime-troubled neighborhoods into programs that teach them job skills. The meeting drew 14 applicants, most of whom said they had not finished high school and were looking for work.

For Jerson Tobar, 18, the chance to earn a GED and work regularly drew him to the seminar.

“I worked as a painter, but there was never enough work,” he said. “When I heard about this, I had to come down and see what it was about. I would like to work for the gas company.”

Recently, CCC recruiters, including Sanchez, visited a neighborhood bordered by 1st Street and McFadden Avenue to the north and south, and Raitt and Sullivan streets to the east and west, passing out information on the program and the upcoming seminar to young adults.

Instructors from Southern California Gas Co. teach sections of the program on home weatherization. Other organizations helping with instruction include the Carpenters Union, Santa Ana’s Community Redevelopment Agency, and the Central County Regional Occupation Program.

Applicants must be Santa Ana residents, ages 18 to 23, and cannot be on probation or parole. After they fill out an application and take a physical, they are given an educational assessment to determine their academic needs.

After two weeks of orientation, trainees then commute to work sites throughout the city to spend eight-hour days learning housing-rehabilitation skills. They also learn park maintenance, tree planting and landscaping and graffiti removal. Starting pay is minimum wage.

Corps members are also required to attend evening classes where they work on writing, reading, computer use and English, if Spanish is their native language.

Bernardo E. Garcia, the San Gabriel Valley and Orange County district director of the California Conservation Corps, said the program, now in its 11th year statewide, also attempts to teach young adults social skills.

“Our concept is team teaching,” he said. “We don’t just teach job skills but try to encourage interaction between workers, which is how the real workplace operates.”

Sanchez has worked his way up to becoming a regional crew leader supervising about 15 trainees since he began last April.

“This program has given me self-respect and direction,” said Sanchez, who said he hopes to major in criminology and become a police officer after he finishes the program.

“A year ago, I never pictured myself helping the community.”