A graduation ceremony was held Saturday for some grade 11 and 12 students, not for high school, but for the RCMP Youth Academy.
The week-long program put 18 youth through a simulation of the RCMP Training Academy in Regina, Saskatchewan, through various training exercises and lectures.
“We had to get up at [5:00am], get ready for the hour-long run,” explains Mekenna Parker, who was one of the students and the troop’s right marker.
“The first morning we were like ‘oh my gosh how are we going to do this for a week’ but once we got into the routine it was really easy.”
The program did not just focus on RCMP specific learning, however, as the lessons learned over the course of the week are some the students will hold on to for the rest of their lives.
“Hard work, determination, teamwork, are all three of the biggest things I found we needed this week,” Parker says.
“Just being able to learn so much about that this week, it will be easy for a lot of us to take that into our regular lives.”
The program is in conjunction with School District 57 and earns the students four credits towards their high school diploma.
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