Koda Lawder is a sixteen-year-old YouthBuild student who in his free time enjoys working on his truck and going to carpentry classes through YouthBuild. He also aspires to get his permit soon so he can drive his truck when it’s all fixed up.
Koda heard about YouthBuild through NFI and took the opportunity to join the program. He says he “suggests this for a lot of people” because of the integration of classroom studies and job skills training. This multi-faceted approach to learning has kept him engaged. YouthBuild is helping him master his math skills which he states is “extremely helpful,” and he considers one of the most valuable skills he has learned at YouthBuild to be carpentry. “Just learning all this new stuff and to handle new tools is awesome. (Carpentry) is definitely a job I’m considering,” Koda says.
One of Lawder’s favorite memories at YouthBuild was working on the barn project in Peacham. “It was fun learning about how to fix up the barn. It was also fun learning how to plant posts. All the stuff there was very fun,” says Koda.
Koda wants people to know that at YouthBuild, you make a lot of great connections. He exclaims “We are all like family, we vent to each other if we need it, we’re there for each other, and if someone needs to talk about something, we talk about it.”
