Youth Leadership Chattanooga (YLC) is a year-long program that the Young Men’s Christian Association, more commonly known as the YMCA, sponsors. The program helps up to 40 selected sophomores and juniors become more active in Hamilton County. It also helps students hone their leadership skills and allows them to learn about history and diversity. This year, YLC only has 11 members, and Central High School is proudly home to three sophomores who have joined the program, Bailey Brantingham, Zoey Greene, and Elizabeth Irving.

YLC offered an overnight retreat, from August 18 through the 19, to help the students in the group learn more about each other. They participated in leadership-based games and activities while in the retreat.

There will be meetings every second Wednesday of each month, until the end of May. The first meeting being September twelfth. In the following monthly meetings, the students will congregate at the downtown YMCA, then they will travel to a location where they can experience abundant job types.

“In the meetings, we learn as much as we can about different career paths and how leadership affects our lives,” sophomore Bailey Brantingham described. “For example, in our first meeting, we will learn about the urban planning, design, and environment job field, so we will do some activities based around that and we will speak to people who are involved in that career.”

Brantingham, Greene, and Irving are all enthusiastically prepared to receive what YLC has to offer them. All three girls joined for multiple reasons, including to make social connections with other members of the group. The students are from numerous different schools, and there is an abundance of social interaction in the meetings.

“YLC is a fantastic program with fantastic people. There is such a close atmosphere between the participants; we all care about each other and the Chattanooga environment,” Zoey Greene confessed.

“I’m excited to learn about Chattanooga and its different careers. I think this program will really help me gain leadership skills and help me with my future,” Elizabeth Irving concluded.