D-Day Leadership Academy

D Day Leadership Academy is proud to announce the 2026 Fundraising Dinner and Panel Discussion supporting Student Leadership Scholarships. This year’s gathering brings together two exceptional storytellers for a focused conversation on why the leadership lessons of D Day still matter for young people today. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Matt Richtel of The New York Times will be joined by award winning documentary filmmaker Christian Taylor, creator of The Girl Who Wore F

That sentence will land differently for everyone who has watched Arden grind, compete, and grow. For fans, it is a milestone. For teammates and coaches, it is a moment of pride. For Arden, it is the next step in a journey defined by work and earned opportunity. For D Day Leadership Academy, it is also a reminder of something we have believed from the beginning. Leadership is not a title. It is a posture. It is how you carry yourself when nobody is watching, how you respond to

D Day Leadership Academy began with a promise. It was not a slogan or a marketing idea. It was a pledge to World War II veterans that their stories would not fade into footnotes, and that the weight of what they carried would be honored with more than a ceremony once a year. We promised to preserve their tales alive. That pledge has shaped everything that followed. It is why DLA exists. It is why the work is serious. It is why we care about accuracy, reverence, and passing hi

Some kids walk into a room and people notice. They speak up early. They make friends fast. They take charge without being asked. It is easy to label those children as leaders and assume everyone else is simply not wired that way. That is wrong. Leadership is not a personality type. Leadership is a capacity. And any child’s capacity for leadership, regardless of where they start, can be developed. That matters because leadership is not optional if you want a meaningful life. E

Summer is when students have time and space to become someone new. D Day Leadership Academy uses that window to do something simple and rare. We take students out of routine and put them into living history and leadership expectations that require effort, humility, and follow through. This summer, DLA is building programming around one primary objective. Get scholarship students onto meaningful ground, with the right supervision, the right instruction, and the right standards

D-Day Leadership Academy’s work is built on a simple belief: when young people encounter history up close, and are held to a higher standard while they’re there, it changes what they think is possible for their own lives. On Thursday, February 19, 2026 , DLA will gather supporters, partners, and friends for our 3rd Annual Charity Gala and Scholarship Dinner  at the Denver Athletic Club . This is the night we rally the community behind the students we serve and the mission we