ST. GEORGE – Trekkers, a youth mentoring program, is turning a milestone this year as an initial group of seventh-graders graduates from high school.

“The three core components are mentoring, experiential learning and leadership development,” program Executive Director Don Carpenter of St. George said in a recent interview.

In 1994, Trekkers began as a volunteer-based outdoors mentoring program aimed at Thomaston seventh-graders with behavioral or academic problems, he said.

Trekkers was the brainchild of the Rev. Peter Edwards-Jenks of Thomaston, and the idea eventually spread to include all youths in Thomaston, St. George and Cushing, Carpenter said.

A group of concerned community members connected with the schools and churches now offers the mentoring program in those SAD 50 towns, Carpenter said, but Trekkers is not directly linked to the school district.

In 1998, Carpenter joined the program when it was just for seventh-graders.

The adults and youths mostly share in outdoors activities such as canoe trips, hiking and rock-climbing, which are often coupled with cultural experiences. Some of the mentors visit the schools during the week to keep in touch with the kids.

When Carpenter first joined Trekkers, he planned to participate in one trip for credit toward his master’s degree in environmental education. But, “I fell in love with the concept,” he said.

That year, Trekkers took a loan to buy the funky converted school bus that they use to travel around Maine or across the country.

At that time, the Youth Forum of Maine agreed to sponsor Trekkers for one year.

In 2000, Trekkers gained nonprofit status and began raising its own money and created a board of directors.

Of the 24 pupils who entered in the seventh grade when Carpenter joined, 18 are still in the program and will graduate from high school this June.

Next month, they will participate in “rites of passage,” Carpenter said, “to honor this huge turning point in their lives.”

The seniors will spend six days at Tanglewood in Lincolnville, including a 24-hour “solo” in the woods, he said.

Senior Nicole Adams of St. George said Sunday that her most memorable experience was in eighth grade when Trekkers traveled to Pittsburgh to join inner-city youths in community service projects. She went with one group to do work at the home of an elderly woman who had just lost her husband.

When senior Taylor Stenger signed up for Trekkers in seventh grade, he was shy and reserved.

“I’m no longer shy and reserved,” he said Sunday. Trekkers has boosted his self-esteem and self-confidence and has connected him with many adult friends he can relate to and talk to, as well as friends his own age.

“Every kid should [join] it,” he said.

Trekkers members participate in individual trips by grade level. During last week’s school vacation, 15 ninth-graders traveled to Nantucket, Mass., with five adult leaders for a 10-day cultural exchange expedition.

The first stop was The Root Cellar in Portland, which is a food distribution organization.

From there, the teens were going from Hyannis, Mass., to catch a boat to Nantucket, the island off Cape Cod, to participate in “gam.”

A traditional gam is when two ships meet on the high seas and stop for shipmates to mingle and to talk about the news of the day, Carpenter said.

The gam on Nantucket was going to be a meeting with Cape Verde natives at a Quaker Meetinghouse. A trip to the Whaling Museum there was also on tap.

Back on the mainland, the bus was to head to Boston for a cultural exchange with Artists for Humanity. That group’s mission is to bridge economic, racial and social divisions in the city by providing at-risk youths with the key to self-sufficiency through paid employment in the arts, Carpenter said.

From there, they were going to visit the Lower East Side of Manhattan to work in a soup kitchen, where they would meet with inner-city youths.

Each year, 24 new members from seventh grade may enter the program. If there is an overflow, those students’ names go into a lottery. There are approximately 125 youths in the program.