WASHINGTON -- In 2000, Bea Sweet walked into a job center in Los Angeles without any direction or a high school diploma. Nine years later, thanks to a program called YouthBuild, the 33-year-old has a job she loves, an education and – on Tuesday -- a front row seat to a speech by first lady Michelle Obama.

“It’s a program of complete transformation,” Sweet said. “Most definitely without YouthBuild I don’t know where I would be.”

YouthBuild is a national nonprofit agency that pays low-income youth to work toward their high school diplomas while they learn job skills by building affordable housing. More than 100 of the group’s leaders and students came to Washington on Tuesday to build a house on the National Mall with the help of congressmen.

Obama met briefly with students while touring the home, which was being built for a hurricane victim in Texas and will be completed there. She then addressed the crowd on the Mall, complimenting the current young generation’s unprecedented commitment to service.

“This generation of youth is one of the most socially conscious and active with 61 percent of 16-25 year-olds saying they feel a personal responsibility for making a difference in the world,” she said.

She told the crowd they should appreciate how early they discovered the value of service, because she said she only started serving her community after law school. She also spoke of her own experience running a Chicago chapter of AmeriCorps, which is YouthBuild’s parent organization.

The stimulus package provided YouthBuild with $50 million, which expands its federal funding to $120 million. “A lot of young people get turned down,” said Sweet, who now works as a program manager for the group “Now we have more money so we can help more young people.”

In 2008, there were 8,000 young adults across the country were enrolled in the program, which attracts mostly high school dropouts under age 24 from the poorest urban areas. The majority of graduates go onto college and jobs which pay more than the minimum wage.

One of the goals of Tuesday’s event was for students to learn the skills involved in green jobs, including how to build energy-efficient homes. A “green academy” was set up in a tent to showcase techniques ranging from how to conduct an energy audit to planting rooftop gardens.

Youthbuilds organizer Frank Alvarez, 28, said the booths got “the wheels turning” in his head, and he now wants to bring the same ideas back to his neighborhood in Los Angeles.

The former gang member credits the program with giving him another chance. When he was 23, he had just gotten out of county jail, had a 2-year-old daughter and no high school diploma. .

He signed up for YouthBuild just in time because the cutoff for eligibility is age 24. Sweet also enrolled shortly before she would have been too old. Both said the program gave them a second chance that they now can pass on to others.

“It’s a blessing,” Sweet said. “It gives you the skills and opportunity to heighten your self-esteem and confidence, which spreads to your family and community."