The ACE Mentor Program of Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia held its annual awards banquet.
Tara Maner, president, said, "The best way to assure a vibrant, healthy community is for our young people to graduate from high school and have successful careers so they too can give back to the community. The ACE Mentor Program of Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia is dedicated to doing just that and more.
"The ACE Mentor Program is a national organization with a two-fold mission:
"1. To enlighten and increase the awareness of high school students to career opportunities in architecture, construction, engineering and related areas of the design and construction industry through mentoring in a free after school program with professional mentors from the building industry.
2. To provide scholarship opportunities for students in an inclusive manner reflective of the diverse school population.
"Students in the 2012-2013 ACE Mentor Program have successfully completed their mentoring program and projects.
The banquet was held to celebrate their achievements and award college scholarships. The banquet was sponsored this year by the Associated General Contractors of East Tennessee."
Three teams of students presented their projects and one student from each team was awarded a $2,500 college scholarship.
The following students were awarded scholarships: Nancy Wong from CSAS (UNUM Scholarship), Jay Helsdon from Homeschool program (AIA/ACE Scholarship) and Chase Camp from Ringgold High School (DBS Corp. Scholarship).
Ms. Maner said, "This year we had two panelists to provide feedback to the students following their presentations. The panelists were Sarah Morgan with Benwood Foundation and Rick Wood with The Trust for Public Land. Their feedback and questions added so much to the students’ experience and to the banquet as a whole. It is so encouraging to the students to hear that their ideas truly matter and that these ideas are not as “out there” as they may have thought."