Success Stories
Accomplished:
Alyssa's Story
When Alyssa got to middle school, she found that the girls who were her friends in elementary school had become her tormentors, mercilessly bullying her day in and day out. By the time she got to high school, things were so bad, she had given up on life, choosing to spend time in her room rather than face another day of humiliation. Eventually, the courts intervened and she was sent to Boys Town, where she ended up graduating with a 4.0 grade average.
Watch Alyssa's Story
Alyssa: My mind set was basically "I don't want to do this, this is too hard." It's just that I have no friends. My life's a train wreck. Lori: There was a problem with middle school. Middle school is where it kind of started.
Alyssa: Like the people who would bully me in middle school were my friends in elementary school. They just didn't like me anymore for absolutely no reason.
Lori: She's such a sensitive person that everything that was being told to her she would take so literally. She just couldn't brush that kind of stuff off. She didn't have those coping skills to be able to do that. I was a single parent. My husband and I divorced. My son at that time needed some major attention, he was cutting himself and so I was focusing a lot on that and she just kind of got the leftover.
Alyssa: I just didn't want to get up and face people at school. I just didn't.
Lori: I would go in and say, "Look, you need to get up." You know at first, it would start off with being nice and then I would come in every five minutes, "Okay, now it's not nice." I would leave the room crying and just, whatever, and then taking away all the stuff and then I would get in my car and go.
Alyssa: I probably went about a month and a couple of days out of the entire sophomore year. Eventually I got placed with a judge and she placed me into Boys Town. The whole place is just swimming with positivity so you just have the motivation to do a lot more.
Lori: If it hadn't have been for Boys Town, I don't know where we would be today. They taught her things that I don't think that she would have learned otherwise. She got on National Honor Society and she actually graduated with a 4.0. I'm thankful for Boys Town in more than just one way. Boys Town has been a life saver. It saved her life, it really did. Her whole outlook on lifechanged because of Boys Town and for that, I am just so grateful.
Alyssa: If I didn't go to Boys town, I probably wouldn't even be alive, honestly. Boys Town completely changed my life.
Lori: There's always hope. There's always somebody that can help you. There's always some place you can turn to.
