The challenges facing young men trying to succeed on their own can be very daunting but a new program, WINGS, seeks to give them the keys to success.

Living on your own and supporting yourself is difficult, even more so if you are young and inexperienced. The prospect can be overwhelming, if you are a young man aging out of foster care and lack a support network to fall back on.

"They are at a loss," said Allyson Pate, WINGS founder and board director. "You are out and without the support you've had in your life. Many (foster) families can't afford to keep kids that don't bring in some kind of income."

Of youth aging out of foster care 41 percent will spend time in jail and 25 percent will spend some time homeless, according to Community Corrections and the Department of Human Services numbers provided by WINGS.

Foster grads aren't the only young men struggling to make their way in life. WINGS action plan points out that there are 175 men ages 18-23 in Wasco and Hood River Counties who are on food stamps.

This is a tragedy, according to Pate, because these young men are in the prime of their life and could be working.

"There are employers in the county going wanting because they can't find enough clean, sober young men to do the job," said Pate. "We need to fill the gap between kids and employers who need workers."

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WINGS is designed to be the stool that allows young men to step up to that challenge. The program will provide safe clean housing, productive work, educational assistance, and wrap around support with mental and health issues, life planning, drug and alcohol support and basic life skills.

WINGS is different from many juvenile rehabilitation programs in that it is completely voluntary. Young men 18 to 23 will file applications to be a part of WINGS. The men who are selected will be those who demonstrate the strongest commitment to making a change in their lives.

In the first phase of the WINGS program a crew of 12 young men will be moved out to Camp Wyeth, an old U.S. Forest Service property off of I-84. During a stay of nine to 12 months crew members will learn basic life skills, build a strong work ethic and develop self confidence.

On a typical day the young men will be up at six in the morning, rain or shine. They will tromp off in two teams, each under the supervision of a crew leader, to do needed labor such as resource management, trail clearing, and litter pick up.

Since WINGS will derive a large portion of its funding from the work done by the crew Pate said that WINGS would be "literally begging for work. We will do work for any agency or business that will pay us."

Upon retiring for the day the crew will pick up pen and paper and work on advancing their education, whether that means obtaining a GED, completing high school, or taking online courses through the community college. More than likely everyone will fall into an exhausted sleep when the mandated 10 p.m. bedtime rolls around.

WINGS will be more than just a labor camp. Enrollees will learn how to cook for themselves, tend an organic garden that will be kept on site and do their own laundry. In addition, on Saturdays volunteers from the community will introduce WINGS crew members to a variety of professions: think welders, car mechanics and furniture makers.

"We want to expose the guys to interesting life professions which do not require college degree," said Pate.

Finally, Sundays will be fun days. The crew will have to chance to get out and have a blast. They will go white water rafting, hiking, bowling, etc.

"We want them to realize there is more to life than playing video games," said Pate. "Sundays will be about getting outside and testing yourself, doing things that require testosterone."

One Sunday a month will be set aside for community service.

"It is important for the boys to appreciate that the community is giving them a chance to be successful and it is important for them to give back," said Pate.

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Rounding out the WINGS experience will be a self development program developed by Ann G. Kramer, Es. S. LPC, called Life Puzzle. Through “Life Puzzle” crew members will learn how to shape their own lives by setting and achieving goals and developing self accountability.

Once crew members have completed their stay at Wyeth and are ready to return to the community they will be, "clean, sober, hardworking, stable, ready to own their own place and be contributing members of the community," said Pate.

WINGS will help set up mentorships between employers in the community and WINGS graduates.

Even though WINGS is Pate's brainchild she didn't originally set out to create a program like it. Through her own experiences as a mother of a 'lost boy' and as an active volunteer in the youth support community the need for a comprehensive support and training program for wayward youth was painfully obvious to her.

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Pate put every effort into searching for a comprehensive support program to help young men. She visited hundreds of rehabilitation programs and centers, she went to Portland to look at their work with the homeless and she attended every conference that related to getting young men back on track. Nothing seemed to fit.

"The more I went to, the more depressed I got," said Pate.

Exhausted and dejected from lack of success Pate knew that it was time to take matters into her own hands.

With the help of other concerned members in the community Pate set up Give Them Wings, Inc., a 501©3 a non-profit corporation which does business as WINGS.

Two weeks ago, on July 26, WINGS finally got the go ahead from the Forest Service to begin going through the process to lease the Wyeth site. Pate said that WINGS will begin remodeling the site in early February.