DARKE COUNTY – Applications are available for The Light Foundation’s fifth annual youth wild turkey hunt, which is open to Darke County youth ages 12 through 17.

The Light Foundation is the non-profit group of Greenville native and former New England Patriot Matt Light. Each year the foundation selects youth from Darke County to go on a turkey hunt with Light and other guides.

“It’s always exciting to come back for this,” Light said at the kickoff to the 2012 hunt. “Because, I think one thing, just being around the kids, it’s always fun, it’s always unique, you always learn something about them, and they experience something they’ve never experienced before, a lot of them. At the end of the day we have a lot of fun chasing these birds around.”

Last year 11 boys and five girls were selected to participate in the fourth annual hunt. The kids combined to shoot 10 turkeys.

This year’s hunt will take place April 19-21. In addition to hunting turkeys, participants will spend the weekend at Chenoweth Trails, which is a facility of The Light Foundation.

To be eligible for the youth turkey hunt, applicants must be between ages 12 and 17 on the day of the hunt, must be Darke County residents, must be able to provide a valid 2013 Ohio hunting license and must be accompanied by an adult.

The deadline for submitting applications is March 13, and selected applicants will be notified by April 3. Selected applicants also must sign up for one day of work at Chenoweth Trails to help establish a wildlife habitat.

As part of the application for the hunt, applicants have to answer an essay question. This year’s essay topic is: “What, in your opinion, are the reasons why people succeed or fail?”

“We ask a lot out of them when it comes to the essay and the application, that whole process,” Light said last year. “And I think, No. 1 it teaches the kids how to do something and see it all the way through and really put their best into it because we do grade those pretty rigorously. Only the top essays are going to be chosen for this event. So it’s a competitive event, but at the end of the day we try to do a topic that they all can relate to.”

For more information on The Light Foundation’s youth wild turkey hunt, visit the foundation’s website at http://www.mattlightfoundation.org