To all staff at the Maryland Freestate Challenge Academy,

My name is William Howard and I just graduated from class 29. I was so blessed to have great cadre and staff like you to put me on the right track. A special thanks to MSG. Chandler, MSG. Lewis, 1Sgt. Stringfellow, SFC. Williams, and especially SFC. King, as well as all the other cadre and staff. If it wasn't for all of your patience and your "tough love" I would not have made it through the whole 22 weeks. All of you have turned me from a temperamental teen to a more mature young man. You guys have also changed me into a more physically fit young man. Thank you. My family and friends have also said what a good job the Freestate ChalleNGe Academy has done whipping me into shape mentally, physically, and spiritually. Honestly, if it wasn't for you guys I could have been locked up. I just received a call stating that I got my H.S.D. I'm now applying for colleges in the field of culinary arts. I know I was a handful but all of you stuck with me instead of sending me home (I know I was close). Once again I thank god for all of you, and I will be up to the new building to visit you in the near future and maybe, if possible, I can talk with the next class. You all really gave class # 29, myself included, a great experience.

                                 God bless and take care,

                                 Former cadet William Howard 

                                 Class # 29

I attended YCP in 2002-2003 at the Gillis Long Center in Louisiana. I was 16 years old at the time and the reason I signed up was because I was getting into a lot of trouble in school, at home, and starting with the law. I was already 2 years behind and going to an alternative school for being expelled for having drugs. A teacher was talking to me about how I needed to better myself and he told me about the program.  I decided to go to the interview and I was picked. A month later, my mom dropped me off on the first day. I thought to myself, I had made a big mistake. The whole time I was there I wanted to go home. There were many times that I just cried and cried, but I always thought about how I didn't want to give up. The cadre helped out a lot too, you would think they didn't cared, but they helped me stay strong many times. I got my GED and I was in the Color Guard. I also got the opportunity to have lunch with Hunt Downer and a few other star generals.

Today I hold a 4.0 GPA at Chemeketa Community College in Salem Oregon. I also tutor intermediate math for the college's student services program. I am happy to say that all the crazy military people running the Youth ChalleNGe program made such of a great impact in my life, that I completely turned my life around.

Life after challenNGe is full of temptations like procrastination, being lazy, and everything else one can imagine. But the Youth ChalleNGe program gave me some tools that I constantly use to stay motivated and successful. I advise all youth challenge cadets to listen to the material that the instructors present so you will be prepared for success when you finish the program.

Cadet McKinney, Aaron

Hi, I'm cadet Rawlings, Jeremy. I graduated from Kentucky Challenge Program. First I want to thank everyone at BCA, that has helped me change my life in the most dramatic way. Before, I was selling and doing drugs, robbing, stealing. You named it I've done it. I joined BCA, because my girlfriend's brother went thru it, although he did not graduate you could still notice a change in him. When i completed the program, everyone i knew was so proud of me! I graduated with my G.E.D. and at the second highest level. When i got back home, no one recognized me. I lost 100 lbs! and stood a little higher. If I had the chance i would love to thank each and everyone at BCA. But I cant cause I have no way there.

Cadet Rawlings, Jeremy

Hello my name is Mike Jackson. I was in class 3. I went there very heavy and I wanted to go in the army. At the end I was 160lbs and I went into the US Army as an infantryman. While I was in I got my jump wings, EIB, CIB, and combat unit patch. None of what I did would ever have happened if I had not gone to grizzly. It gave me the structure I needed and training to loose the weight. I went to Iraq when the whole thing started with the 101st airborne (ASSLT) division. I was part of a delta company of gun trucks. While there I was a .50 cal gunner team leader and driver. I am now currently out of the army. I am raising a son on my own. I currently work for a helicopter company. My job is air traffic control on off shore oil platforms. The training I received in the army on talking to aircraft for air strikes gave me the knowledge and training for this job. However it all started for me in grizzly. The academy gave me the foundation and step in the door for my life to start.

Michael Jackson
Class 3

A couple of weeks ago, I graduated high school. It seems like a fairly ordinary task completed by several thousand teenagers in the state of California annually. But for me, it had sadly become an impossibility. As my life continued in a cruel downward spiral, I felt I was helpless but to watch myself sink. The real tragedy was my educational suicide. I did NOTHING to stop myself from failing. I did nothing to stop myself from sneaking out to get drunk with my friends. I did nothing to make my parents stop crying over my failure. I did get mad. I blamed teachers, adults, police, and my parents.

Needless to say, my parents were devastated. I was adopted as a baby. My mother was fifteen years old, and a prostitute in Seoul, South Korea. She abandoned me in the hospital. My parents saved my life. Without their efforts to rescue me, I would be without a family in a group home in Korea. To get wealthy American parents was truly some stroke of divine luck. And to be privileged enough to live in the beautiful state of California is another story! I should have realized that life is not always like an adoption. You cannot pick and choose, and you cannot get the chance to start over.

Grizzly Youth Academy was my second, second chance. I was skeptical. How could a program that was only five months long POSSIBLY change me. I didn't see anything wrong with my life. I was perfectly happy with my truancy record I had set at school. I was happy with my mornings full of hangovers. I didn't know how much more there was to life. However, I did get an idea of how the program worked at around 5 AM the next morning. The sergeants were the key. They were firm and sometimes harsh, but they were the most caring and wise counselors. They were people who CARED. They were parents, brothers and sisters. I had previously thought them to be inhuman robots programmed to destroy. They were vital to my success. They guided me, like a mare supervising her newborn foal taking its first shaky steps. By the time graduation swung around, I was the equivalent of Sea Biscuit. Thanks to the Grizzly Youth Academy, I graduated with honors. I got a High School Diploma and I was the valedictorian with a scholarship from Merrill Lynch.

I learned so much more than math and essays. I learned so much about myself that I could have never learned on my own. I actually had a passion for learning and knowledge. I also learned that I can succeed in anything I choose to do. I always had the aptitude to succeed, just not the proper attitude to execute. My poor attitude made me think that success was impossible. In the local paper, I used to read all about seniors who graduated with scholarships, and at least fifty Ivy League Schools drooling over them. I read about them enviously. I thought that I could never possibly be one of those kids. Thanks to Grizzly, I got to see my name in the local newspaper recognizing me for my achievements in high school – my dream came true. The happiness was like eating ice cream for the first time after being in Grizzly without it for so long. But this feeling will linger with me forever. I sill never forgep what Grizzly has done for me.

It is for this reason, that programs like Grizzly are VITAL. There should not even be a question that is debatable. If lives could be changed, and hope restored both in parents and failing students, then we are one step closer to making this world a better place. It is the hope in the youth that carry them to success in their careers and futures. To let their situational problems extinguish their passion for life is a crime. Everyone has a constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Grizzly made my life what it is today, gave me freedom from despair, and has given me limitless horizons to happiness.

Cadet Derek Sisting

I came to Tarheel ChalleNGe because it was really my only hope for a good future. Most of the cadets were there because of discipline problems, but I was not. I came to Tarheel after I realized I would end up on the streets or dead if I didn't do something with my life. Being eighteen with no place to go is hard, but I was accepted.

Tarheel ChalleNGe has taught me a lot. Mostly, the cadre taught me to trust in myself. I've been let down most of my life by family, so I found it hard to trust people. Sooner or later at Tarheel ChalleNGe I began to make friends and communicate. I still had trouble trusting, but that was something I had to overcome.

I haven't lived a great life. My problems getting close to people started when I was a kid. Unlike most teenagers, my parents were not there most of the time. They were either too busy or just weren't around. I received exactly three letters from my biological mother while at TCA. It was almost as though she wanted nothing to do with me.

When I was younger, my mom remarried. I thought my stepdad would be there to replace my real father, but I was wrong. Not only was he a bad replacement, but when I finally found trust in him, he began to get abusive and hit me. There were many times when I would run away or try to kill myself.

My parents moved to Ohio before my eighteenth birthday, leaving my brother and myself to go into foster care. Because of my problem getting close to people, I felt I had to hurt them to keep them away. That caused me to get kicked out of my foster home. I ended up in Harbor, but yet again I began to get loose and rude and was thrown out. That's when I ended up at TCA! TCA has helped me get past that part of my life. I will never forget the past because it is hard to forget. But I will forgive my stepfather for what he did.

Before Tarheel I was ready to end my life. I didn't believe in God, nor did I have faith in anything. TCA helped me to restore my faith in myself and my faith in others. I now attend church on a regular basis and I am slowly but surely putting together a relationship with God.

While at TCA, although I had no family support, I did have church support. Letters rolled in from friends and other people that attended my church. If it hadn't been for those letters and cadre support I doubt I would ever have made it through the program.

Most people think the cadre are mean. I know because I thought that too. But the cadre were like family to me. I will never forget all they did to help me. Ms. Glover most of all was there to talk to whenever something bad happened. I will forever be grateful to all the cadre, even the ones that I didn't know, because just watching how they handled certain situations made me see life differently. They are just like family-there are some you get along with and some you don't. But they will never give up on you and that's what I like most about them. They are there for you when you need them and they are there for you when you do not.

Soon I will be going into the Air Force to continue with life. I chose the Air Force because I wanted to join, but also because I loved the structure at TCA and the Air Force will have that same sort of structure.

I came to TCA wanting to end my life and give up, and I left a whole new person!

Amber Gibbs

Hi this is former Cadet Davis Melanie of class 20-03...I'm writing to say since graduation, I enrolled in college. My maojr is Liberal Arts and I entered a helpful program for independent living. Lincoln's Challenge was not only a chance for me but a change for the better.

Thank you and Good Luck

Graduate Melanie Davis

This is graduate Turner, Robert of cycle 20. I wanted to let everybody know that graduate Melody Thompson cycle 20, is now Mrs. Melody Turner. We were married Dec. 3, 2004, and we are now expecting our first child September 25, 2005. Melody is working as a child development teacher, and as for myself, I have successfully become half owner/operator of Pro Assembly. I manage all business in OK, CA, KS, TX, AR, CO, and MO. I also just hired graduate Luke Whaley cycle 20, as on-site foreman. Melody and myself are currently residing in Edmond, OK and are doing wonderfully. Please give all my support to the current cadets, and let them know I could never have done this well for myself had it not been for Thunderbird. I could never thank Thunderbird enough for helping me get my life on the right track. I owe everything I have to this Academy... You will never know that you truly saved my life. God Bless All Of You.

Graduate Robert Turner

My name is Robert Gutierrez and I am a graduate of the California Grizzly Youth Academy cycle 5. First of all, I would like to thank all the good people at GYA for helping me find direction and meaning in my life. Like most of the cadets attending Grizzly, I dropped out of high school and found myself lost and confused. I had no clue on what to do with my life and saw no light at the end of the tunnel. I am convinced that without GYA I would either be getting into trouble with the law or sitting at home feeling sorry for myself. Your program was able to save me from that life. Currently, I am a political science major at UCSB and will graduate next year. The character that I gained while at the camp has propelled me to enjoy the benefits of a higher education and deal with the adversities that life brings. Recently, I have been thinking back at my time at Grizzly and feel that I should give back in some way. If I could I would like to be able to assist the Academy in any way possble as a way to to give back to the institution that gave me so much. Please email me back with any information on what I could do. Also if you could give special thanks to the cadre and teachers for helping me shape my life the way it is today. Grizzly Youth Academy will always remain in my heart as the special place where I was able find myself and learn how to live a virtuous and productive life. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Graduate Robert Gutierrez

If you are a proud ChalleNGe graduate, email us your story today: info@ngycp.org.