by Natasha Khairullah
Staff Writer
Bernard Carter believes in second chances.
The 19-year-old former Jacksonville inmate, along with 19 other young offenders between the ages of 19 and 25, earned his diploma at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Community Corrections Facility Wednesday.
Carter was this year’s Valedictorian.
“I couldn’t do this without everyone’s help,” said Carter, who prepared for for the General Educational Development tests while in jail.
“Thanks for everyone sticking by me through my mistakes.”
After four felony convictions for drug trafficking and a severed high school education, Carter said he’s grateful for the chance to improve his situation and turn his life around.
Carter, along with four other graduates, was a participant in one of two City-sponsored programs called YouthBuild that prepare inmates for a career and life after incarceration.
By addressing several core issues faced by low-income communities, the program is a youth and community development program.
“It’s a program to help these young men succeed and use the skills they have to their full advantage,” said YouthBuild Supervisor Rosemary Anderson.
YouthBuild teaches construction trades and works with the Housing Partnership of Jacksonville and HabiJax to help provide affordable housing.
The second program, called Developing Adults with Necessary Skills (DAWN), provides students with GED preparation, life skills training and transitional counseling classes necessary for males ages 18 to 23 who have been sentenced to successfully integrate into society.
There were 14 graduates of the DAWN program this year.
As a result of the programs’ nearly 90 percent success rate, as well as a high job placement rate, only seven of the graduates of the two programs attended the graduation ceremony. The rest were at work.
Duval County School Board member Betty Burney was on hand, along with Department of Corrections Director Gordon Bass to provide the graduates with a few lessons she learned over the years that helped her succeed.
Program Counselor Richard McKissick was the program’s orator and made the graduates proclaim at the end of the ceremony, “I will never, never, never, never, ever come back here again.”
Carter, who said he was previously on the path to a high school diploma before dropping out of school, wants to study computer science at Florida Community College at Jacksonville and is no longer incarcerated.
“I have to keep moving forward and keep the goal in sight. I got off my path once and it’s not going to happen again,” he said.