AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) – A local veteran and educator has been awarded the nation’s highest honor for community service.
Dr. Jackson Drumgoole, who is the founder of Bridge Builder Communities, received the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award during the 2025 Commencement Ceremony of the International School of Champions Theological and Professional Institute in Atlanta by the AmeriCorps program for his volunteer service and a lifelong commitment to youth and community advancement.
According to officials, Drumgoole is leading the development of the first Bridge Builder Community, a 25-home tiny village designed to provide housing, healing, and hope to young adults transitioning out of foster care, and is described to being one of Georgia’s most innovative responses to a statewide crisis facing young adults aging out of foster care, which is a pipeline to homelessness, unemployment, and incarceration that begins the moment they exit the system without support.
“This award is not mine alone,” said Dr. Drumgoole. “It belongs to every volunteer, donor, and champion who believes in building bridges, not walls, for our youth. Together, we are the village.”…