38 juvenile offenders graduate from second chance program
A special graduation ceremony was held Friday for juvenile offenders in Racine.
A special graduation ceremony was held Friday for juvenile offenders in Racine.
A special graduation ceremony was held Friday for juvenile offenders in Racine.
A special graduation ceremony was held Friday for juvenile offenders in Racine.
Their road to a second chance at success was celebrated with pomp and circumstance.
Thirty-eight students earned their small business entrepreneurship diplomas while at Racine Youthful Offender Correctional Facility.
They were minors when they were adjudicated.
"I never thought that I would even make it this far," said Jimmy Jackson, 22, of Kenosha.
He's now a graduate after years of hard work.
"Words can't really explain how I feel, cause I got all the tools and I actually finished it," Jackson said.
With his diploma, he's halfway to an associate's degree when he is released in about a year.
Jackson one day hopes to own his own trucking company.
"Locked up, not messed up and I'm going to add three words to that, 'And moving on,'" Madison College President Dr. Jack Daniels III said.
Fifteen of the graduates represent the first cohort of the Second Chance Pell Program.
They're enrolled with Madison College.
The program provides need-based Pell grants to people in state and federal prisons.
"It should be called second, third, fourth, fifth, because sometimes you need multiple chances to bump your head a little bit until you get it right," education director Ronda Davis said. "The main thing to learn is basically never give up. There's always going to be bumps in the road. You just gotta continue to push forward and bet on yourself."
By the fall, the Second Chance Pell Program will have nearly 60 enrollees at six Department of Corrections facilities across the state.