Youth Corps is a life-changing experiential learning and leadership development experience for 9th and 10th grade students currently in the Midlands of South Carolina. Youth Corps Students are a cross-section of the community socioeconomically and racially making it a real world experience.
Students come from nineteen different high schools across the Midlands of South Carolina. Students are first Engaged by modules that are built from nine areas of influence that make up each community, Exposed to professional environments, and Experience real life situations led by some of the top community leaders in their fields. It truly is an experience like no other!
Excitement is building as we step into the next chapter of Youth Corps. The goal is to scale the YC Model to new regions in South Carolina, across the country and around the world in years to come!
Youth Corps History
In 2002, one of the Youth Corps founders involved with other Midland’s youth programs attended a Youth Leadership Conference in San Diego. The three-day youth leadership track provided best practices from numerous youth organizations across the country. Upon his return, a steering committee was formed to explore the possibilities of starting a non-profit organization dedicated to a hands-on leadership program for youth. Information and particulars were collected from forty other youth leadership programs, and the best of what was seen was put together into one blueprint which is now called Youth Corps.
What began as a vision of a few community leaders has exploded into what one national leadership organization called “an opportunity unlike anything in the country.” With hundreds of supporters, 129 community leaders, multiple businesses and organizations, and five school districts, the Youth Corps experience is changing lives. And changed lives, change communities.