Keshia Smith

     Club Member for 10 Years

Graduate: William G. Enloe High School

North Carolina A&T University

Strayer University

Occupation: Career & Technical Education Teacher, Heritage High School, Wake Forest, NC

_______________________________________________________________

I joined the Raleigh Girls Club when I was 8 years old. Both of my parents were hard workers, but we had limited income and so our resources were extremely limited. I loved sports and music, but basketball was my first love. I started playing organized basketball when I was 5 years old. The Club gave me an extended vision of what life looked like outside of the environment in which I lived.

Joan Wyatt, Suzanne Tadlock, and Ron Williams were my parents away from home. They forced and reinforced education along with teaching us about life. The Club provided leadership programs, general life programs, and sports teams to help create well rounded young people. They taught us how to maximize the resources that we had available. The Club provided opportunities I would not have had were I not a part of the Raleigh Girls Club. I got to go to a Boys & Girls Clubs Keystone Conference in Atlanta, GA that was sponsored by Nike who closed Six Flags down for the conference. I got offered golf scholarships and got to go to the Masters Golf Tournament and even went skiing in the Appalachian Mountains. I came back to the Girls Club and worked as a counselor. I learned so many things by being “all in” with the Club. To me the “special” thing about being a part of the Club is that it offers people care and opportunities that youth would not otherwise have. It also allows kids to be who they are contrary to what others think about them.

Being a part of the Raleigh Girls Club taught me how to be an individual, and I believe that has been my greatest success as an adult. I have gotten a Masters of Education, am raising a 12 year old son, and I am in my desired career of teaching. The Club was a big part of my life and for that I am most thankful.