Success Stories
Transformation:
Isaac's Story
Isaac seemed destined for a future of poverty and crime. This feeling of hopelessness eventually led him to commit a serious act of violence, one that haunts him to this day. Thankfully, with the help of Boys Town and its team of educators and mentors, Isaac has gone from an at-risk youth to a young man with a promising future in law and leadership.
Watch Isaac's Story
Isaac: The worst thing that I've ever done in my life is beat this kid for no reason. The kid ended up in the hospital. Man, that situation right there has always stuck with me. I will never forget that. Am I going to be getting arrested all the time? Am I going to be getting into fights in the streets? Am I going to be getting shot at? Am I going to have kids that I can't support? I wanted to find a way out and I did.
Early on, I got into a lot of trouble. I remember one day the principal, Mrs. Disalvo, came to me and pulled me out of the classroom and she said, "Isaac, take a look at this graph." And it was a graph and it had these numbers, the kids with the most office referrals and the kids with the most missed homework assignments because they keep track of all that. I was number one in office referrals and I was number two at missing homework assignments.
I made a conscious decision right then to like really start trying. Start trying in school and to start trying in the home because it didn't just change the grades that I got in the classroom. It changed the kind of person that I was. I got involved in a lot of things. I made the high school baseball team as an eighth grader. That was cool. We had some of the best records the Boys Town baseball team ever had. I was always involved with Student Council. Let's see. I ran for mayor. I didn't get that. I gave the senior class speech. I was the yearbook editor and photographer. I was on National Honors Society. The road I am on now, I am a political science/pre-law student.
A future high school drop out, potential convict, God knows what else, to being a high school graduate, college student on scholarship, potential law school student. Those are the kind of opportunities that Boys Town gave me. They help kids. They help families. They help people make better lives for themselves and that's so significant. I mean, I will always be indebted to them for it. I feel like there's always going to be Boys Town because there's always going to be kids like myself in need. There's always going to be somebody that who could use that help and that guidance and I think Boys Town does that pretty much better than anyone.
