The Youth of the Year serves as an ambassador for the club. Candidates must be between 14 and 18 years old, an active member in a Boys & Girls Club and have a GPA of at least 2.5 to maintain a scholarship award. To compete, they must submit three essays and two letters of recommendation for their application, among other requirements.
Ke’mya Lam
Lam started attending the Dayton Boys & Girls Club with her younger sibling about four years ago. She later applied for a job at the club through YouthWorks, a nonprofit helping teens find jobs with future job skills.
Lam is a junior staff member and a member of the Boys and Girls Club, which means she works at the club but can also participate in activities.
Her focus is now on bringing more opportunities to underprivileged kids.
“If you have a kid that has these opportunities where he can go to tutoring after school, or he doesn’t have to watch his sibling, or he doesn’t have to work a job, he’s more likely to do just a little bit better than someone who has to take on these responsibilities,” Lam said.
Lam plans to attend Grand Canyon University in Arizona for nursing after graduating from high school this year. Her long-term goal is to open more clubs for underprivileged youth.
Crystal Allen, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Dayton, said Lam is a dedicated voice advocating for her community.
“When we talk about character and development, Ke’mya really embodies what it is that we want our young people to do and be in their community,” Allen said.
Megan Oliver
Oliver is part of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Youth Program, which is connected to the Boys & Girls Club. She is the military Youth of the Year for Ohio.
Her mom is retired from the Air Force and her dad is a member of the Army.
Oliver is enrolled in the Navajo tribe and a descendant of the Swinomish and Kiowa tribes. She is passionate about sharing her culture with others.
“I’m passionate about it because in Ohio, there’s a lot of people that don’t know that Native Americans still exist,” Oliver said. “Some of the kids that I go to school with, they sometimes they don’t even realize that Native Americans are still alive.”
She has organized several events in her club sharing Native American traditional dances and foods.
Bennie Luck, youth programs coordinator, said as Oliver organized cultural events to talk about Native American culture, the events got bigger and bigger each year. She always has a positive attitude and engages her fellow members, he said.
Oliver plans to get a general education at Haskell Indian Nationals University in Kansas after graduating from high school.
Demarion Sample-Jackson
Sample-Jackson is part of the Boys & Girls Club of Hamilton. He plans to attend South Carolina State University next fall and study fashion merchandising.
Sample-Jackson said he went through some severe mental health struggles and now talks about mental health awareness and suicide prevention in teens.
“Everyone should be told every day that you are worthy and that you belong here,” Sample-Jackson said.
Tommy John, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Hamilton, said Sample-Jackson has been able to share his story and help other kids who are struggling with mental health.
Part of the speech Sample-Jackson plans to give at the lunch includes the statistic that one in five teens have thoughts of suicide, and Sample-Jackson was one of them.
“I think it’s not just changing his life to be able to share his story, but it changes other people’s lives who hear that... might feel like they’re alone or like they’re the only person out there that feels like this,” John said.
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