James Lovell is 19 years old and lives in rural Cass County with a family of seven, including four siblings. He met the criteria for a low-income participant when he graduated high school in May 2022. A few months later, he began working part-time at McDonald’s in Beardstown, Illinois, earning $13.00 an hour. With no other formal training and after seeing the quality of care provided to one of his family members, James decided he also wanted to begin pursuing a career in the healthcare field. He chose to start with Basic Nurse Assistant (CNA) training at Midwest Technical Institute (MTI).

Living in Chandlerville, Illinois while MTI is in Springfield, Illinois, James traveled over 88 miles round trip each day back and forth to Springfield for his training. Fortunately, support services with mileage help offset his daily gas expenses to eliminate this barrier.

He finished training with a 92% and passed his state board exam on the first attempt within two weeks of completing his training. On-the-job training options were explored. However, James wasted no time with his job search and began searching for employment opportunities before completing his training.
He began employment as a CNA approximately five weeks after that, working full-time for Heritage Health in Jacksonville, IL. His starting pay rate was $7.00 more per hour than his hourly rate at enrollment.