VOICES OF TENACITY
Luis SanchezAlumni, ASEP Class of 2004
At the age of 13, after years of dealing with a tumultuous home life, I stopped going to school for about three weeks, and rarely stayed in school when I did show up. I started hanging out in the South End of Boston, in and out of different friends’ homes, and eventually living on the street for a couple of days, with no food or money. I was out with the wrong people and doing the wrong things, smoking and selling weed just to get by, and running around with a gang my friends and I created, called “villa park gangstaz”.
Reality didn’t hit me until late March of 2004, when I was essentially kicked out of my house.Andy, the director of the Tenacity after-school program I was in, made an arrangement with my mother. He offered to take me in and let me live with him for a while. His one condition was that I had to go to school every day. It was at this point in my life when I began to understand not only the importance of the decisions we make in life and how they impact who we are, but the value of a supportive network that offers unconditional encouragement and faith. Though I felt alone being away from the home in which I’d grown up, I knew I wasn’t – I had Andy and the rest of the Tenacity community behind me.
Drawing on my own inner strength which was largely fostered by my experience in the After School Excellence Program (ASEP), I went back to school, finished 8th grade and got accepted into MATCH, one of the country’s best charter high schools. MATCH is a really tough school, but since freshmen year I’ve used all my struggles as a catalyst to turn my life around. My life changed from trying to survive in the streets to desiring academic success, eventually leading to goals I never thought to attain. I made honor roll for the first time in my life, became class president and captain of the basketball team. I began tutoring younger students, and got a job at Fenway Park during the baseball season.
These achievements helped prove, to myself and others, that I was willing to do whatever it took to overcome my past. Ultimately my struggles have played a role in reversing the generational curse that has hovered over my family; I will be the first to graduate high school and proudly receive my diploma. Next year, I will enter college. So far, I have been accepted to Emmanuel College, Boston College, Boston University, and Holy Cross.
Many thought I was destined to fail, but Tenacity helped me stay on track and my own resilience and inner strength needed to pull me through a low point in my life. Now I use my story as continuing motivation to become a success in whatever I choose to be.
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