Keiki club program director makes youths feel special

Jeric Lake’s first glimpse of what makes the Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii special came on his first day as an intern at the organization’s Charles C. Spalding Clubhouse on Waiola Street.

“It was loud and chaotic and high-energy,” Lake recalls. “There were kids everywhere. I loved it.”

Lake’s embrace of the club’s frenetic energy, positive culture and life-anchoring programs is evident in his current work as a program director with the club and, most recently, in his being named one of 11 national recipients of the Maytag Dependable Leader Award.

The award comes with a $20,000 grant, which the club will use to help deserving kids pursue post-high school education.

Lake said the award has special meaning because of Maytag’s long association with the ideal of dependability, a guiding principle in Lake’s own approach to working with the hundreds of kids who pass through the clubhouse doors each week.

“Success in my eyes is making sure that every kid I interact with feels special,” he says.

Lake’s parents divorced when he was 6, and he followed his mother when she relocated from Makakilo to Georgia.

After spending his middle school years in the South, he returned to Hawaii to live with his father.

“I was fortunate because I had a father present in my life,” Lake says. “A lot of kids don’t have that, and I can see how it affects them.”

Lake joined the Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii in 2011. His impact was immediate.

In renovating program spaces within the clubhouse, Lake helped to transform dreary, underused rooms into safe, attractive spaces for club members to study and hang out. Later, Lake oversaw the development of inter-club leagues for flag football, basketball and volleyball, using the lure of sports to expose more kids to the positive influence of the club as a hub for safe and friendly interaction, study and counseling.

In his four years at the Spalding Clubhouse, attendance has doubled. But Lake’s influence can’t be told in aggregate; it’s always been about the one.

Not long ago Lake reached out to a young boy who had followed his friends to the club but had rebuffed efforts by coaches and would-be mentors to become more involved.

Lake met the boy on his own terms, patiently letting him find a level of comfort within the club’s organized sports. With gentle support, occasional tough love and continuous encouragement, the boy thrived, making friends, assuming leadership and earning player of the year honors in one league.

Lake said his young protege continues to struggle with instability at home and the influence of outside friends, but Lake’s commitment remains constant.

“All it takes is knowing that someone cares about you, that you matter,” Lake says. “I told him, ‘You’re not going to make me angry. I might be disappointed, but I’ll always be here to support you.’”

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Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.