Sunburst graduates 28th class

IRVINE, Calif. – Geographically speaking, Sunburst Youth Challenge Academy is only 124 miles from the city of Indio, but it's a lifetime away from the experiences 17-year-old Melanie Cisneros walked away from over the summer.

"I was introduced to Sunburst at a time in my life when I wasn’t doing too well," Cisneros said Friday during a graduation ceremony in Irvine for the academy's 28th class.

"I started failing all my classes in school due to the poor decisions I was making," she said. "I surrounded myself with the wrong crowd and did things I know I shouldn’t have been doing."

Eventually, she hit a breaking point.

"I hit rock bottom emotionally," Cisneros told the audience. "I remember sitting at home thinking to myself, 'Damn, do I really want to keep feeling this way?'"

Cisneros and more than a hundred other teens found their way to Joint Forces Training Base, Los Alamitos, in early July...