Five Bryan County teens are set to graduate from the National Guard-sponsored Youth Challenge Academy at Fort Stewart on Saturday at commencement ceremonies at Fort Stewart’s YCA campus.
Andrew Bright, John Cook and Paul Doyle of Pembroke and Tytrell Brown and Michael Floyd of Richmond Hill successfully completed the 22-week, in-residence youth development program for at-risk youth located at Fort Gordon near Augusta.
The National Guard Youth Challenge Program helps to reclaim the lives of “at-risk” youth to produce graduates with the values, skills, education and self-discipline necessary to succeed as adults.
Youth Challenge Academy is a preventive rather than remedial program, targeting youth who are unemployed and drug-free high school dropouts with no run-ins with the law, 16 to 18 years of age.
Georgia operates two Youth Challenge Academy campuses, the original at Fort Stewart and a second at Fort Gordon. Since its first graduating class in 1993, Youth Challenge boasts almost 10,000 graduates.