Success Stories
On top of the bleachers inside the Don & Sallie Davis Boys & Girls Club’s gym, LaQuita Grinnage would sit expressionless with her two sisters. With no interest in talking with Club staff or playing with other kids, her body said, “Leave me alone,” louder than any word she could utter. The Boys & Girls Club was the last place LaQuita wanted to be.
At the time, LaQuita and her siblings were living in a nearby shelter with their mother. “We couldn’t be at the shelter without our mom. So four of the seven of us kids – my brother, two sisters and me – joined the Club,” says LaQuita, the middle child of 12. “My sisters and I stuck together. We’d sit in the gym saying, ‘No, I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to do that.’”
However, with patience and persistence, the Club staff managed to convince LaQuita to try a few activities. First, it was jump rope, and then volleyball. Later, it was Torch Club and Keystone Club.
Eventually, LaQuita joined Sista Pride, a program created to help teenage girls succeed. It helped LaQuita to become a responsible, mature and positive young women. She became a teen facilitator and a natural leader.
Now a senior in high school, her future is boundless. In the spring of 2009, LaQuita was also named the Northwestern Mutual Foundation and State of Wisconsin Youth of the Year, an award given to the top Boys & Girls Club member in the state.
"I want to be the kind of person people look up to," LaQuita says. With a 3.5 GPA and the goal of attending
Tennessee
State
University to become a pediatrician, she already is.