With hands-on learning and on-site child care, workforce hub aims to boost Southwest’s economy

With hands-on learning and on-site child care, workforce hub aims to boost Southwest’s economy

In 2025, nearly 37,000 students from 18 school districts poured into the Career Commons area at the EO hub in Abingdon, which features a grocery store, banks, a medical clinic and more than a dozen other simulated businesses. Students can scan and bag groceries, tinker under the hood of a vehicle or see what it’s like to brush or floss the teeth of a dental patient. Career Commons, spanning more than 17,000 square feet, was designed to help stud…