The Boys & Girls Club became her ‘home’ in Columbus. Now she’s Youth of the Year.
As she started her junior year at Carver High School, she heard her adoptive mother say it was time to move out of town. Amiya Wright, however, insisted on staying in Columbus. The main reason was the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Chattahoochee Valley, which had become her bright sanctuary from life’s dark storms.
But to remain here, Amiya needed a legal guardian. And she found one in the club’s teen center director, Antonio Pace Sr.
Now a senior at Carver and on track for college to become a doctor, Amiya has gone from a middle-school wallflower to a high-school leader — and the club’s 2020 Youth of the Year.
With an operating budget of $4.5 million, the nonprofit BGCCV’s 90-member staff serves approximately 2,500 children annually at five units in Columbus. Ninety percent of those children, according to Rodney Close, the organization’s president and CEO, are considered economically disadvantaged, and 60% come from a single-parent home.
Just like Amiya.
Those who know her story well say Amiya’s journey personifies the BGCCV’s mission: “To inspire and enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as responsible, caring, productive citizens.”
Jodi Chokhar, a member of the board’s Youth of the Year selection committee, told the Ledger-Enquirer via email the judges were impressed by “her ability to persevere in the midst of adversity. Her story touches your heart and is so inspirational to those around her. She’s the reason why we give and care for these kids. She reflects how (the Boys & Girls Clubs) can have a profound change on a person’s life and future.”
In an interview with the L-E, Amiya put it this way: “It doesn’t matter your background or where you come from or who you are. There are people here at the Boys & Girls Clubs who are really willing to help, no matter your situation.”
Club’s impact
Amiya hasn’t lived with her birth mother since she was a freshman in high school, when she moved back with the aunt who had adopted her.
“I didn’t want to stay with my birth mother because I didn’t want to have all that burden with different type of activities I had going on and interfere with her life and disturb what she had going on,” Amiya told the Ledger-Enquirer. “… We were struggling with not having a car, not really having heat, water in my house when I was staying with my aunt.”
Two years later, when her adoptive mother was planning to move away, Amiya took a stand and found a way to stay.
“I didn’t want to give up all the opportunities and the different awards that I was receiving in Columbus,” she said. “… There were other people I could stay with, but I had to think about who was actually going to help me, like financially, physically and emotionally, and the only person that really came out was Coach Pace.”
Amiya explained why.
“He’s family-oriented, and I’m very family-oriented,” she said. “He’s like a father figure in my life, so I needed that guidance to help me.”
Amiya started attending the BGCCV’s north branch when she was 6. Then she transferred to the south branch in sixth grade. As a high-schooler, she goes the teen center adjacent to the south branch.
The clubs have programs and activities to boost children in three areas: academics, character/leadership and healthy lifestyles.
The BGCCV paid her expenses to attend several conferences, including one for aspiring doctors in Boston, as well as field trips and college tours. Staff members consoled her when a DNA test revealed that the man she thought was her estranged father wasn’t her father after all, and they pushed her to apply for college scholarships, Amiya said.
Nobody more than Pace.
When she was in middle school, Amiya was quiet and reluctant to participant in the club’s activities, Pace said.
“We pulled her in and just started giving her leadership things to do,” he said.
Amiya did her homework in Pace’s office, shadowed him around the club and confided in him. She started calling him “Pops.”
Among the private facts she disclosed to him: She didn’t have a father involved in her life.
The staff chose Amiya, as a seventh-grader, to be one of 12 club members they could help attend the Daddy/Daughter Dance at the Columbus Convention & Trade Center that year. The BGCCV paid for their dress, corsage and manicure. Pace escorted them.
So four years later, when Amiya asked him and his wife, Chaunte, to be her guardians, they didn’t hesitated to bring a fifth child into their home.
“That’s God,” Pace said. “He put her and us and me on that path together.”
The shy middle-schooler who was reluctant to participate in the club has become the outgoing high-schooler who introduces herself to new members and shows them around.
“You had to force her into a situation where she had to speak,” Pace said. “Now, if any speaking engagement comes up, she’s the go-to.”
The speech
The Youth of the Year finalists were honored at the BGCCV’s annual celebration Feb. 6 in the Bibb Mill Event Center. Along with Amiya, the finalists were:
- Demetria Floyd, a senior at Carver.
- Lovely Foster, a junior at Carver.
- Parris Johnson, a freshman at Spencer.
- Treasure Jones, a junior at Spencer.
- Joshua Leigh, a junior at Jordan.
- Cierra Matthews, a junior at Spencer.
Executive committee member Wade Burford, the president and CEO of Synovus East Alabama, was inducted into the BGCCV Hall of Fame for his 34 years of service to the clubs.
The top four finalists each had to give a presentation describing their personal struggles and experience with BGCCV. During her speech, Amiya disclosed personal details about her life.
“Growing up, I didn’t have the best childhood,” she told the audience. “As a matter of fact, it is something I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through.”
She was born prematurely and abandoned at the hospital, Amiya said. Her aunt adopted her when she was 2 months old.
They struggled financially. Without a car, they had to walk or ride the bus.
Amiya saw her aunt suffer physical and emotional abuse, she said. They moved “from city to city, shelter to shelter, even house to house, all before I was age 12,” she said.
Afraid of what Amiya was witnessing, the aunt sent Amiya to her birth mother.
But her birth mother, who worked the third shift at Walmart, couldn’t be the mother she needed while dealing with depression, Amiya said.
“I understood why she gave me up for adoption,” she said.
Overcome with emotion, Amiya teared up and walked away from the podium. The crowd cheered her and encouraged her to continue.
The emcees, WTVM news anchors Barbara Gauthier and Jason Dennis, comforted her along with Close. Amid shouts of encouragement from the crowd, they helped Amiya return to the podium and finish her speech, with Close standing by her for support.
“There is nothing lonelier than sitting in the same room with someone and having absolutely nothing to talk about,” she continued, speaking about her birth mother. “The lack of affection had me confused, and I returned to my aunt stressed and hurt. I didn’t know my father, and feeling invisible by my mother, I questioned myself: ‘Why doesn’t anyone want me?’”
That’s the gap the Boys & Girls Clubs filled in her life.
“No thank-you is big enough to top what the organization has done for me,” she said.
The crowd gave her a standing ovation.
‘Never give up’
With her birth mother in the audience, Amiya was concerned how she would react. Amiya never had shared those feelings with her. And when she did, it was in front of hundreds of people.
“I was kind of afraid, but I had to do it,” Amiya told the L-E. “It was something I just had to do. If I didn’t do it, it was never going to be said. … It worked out.”
Indeed, after the speech, her birth mother told her she wasn’t offended.
“She gave me a kiss on my cheek and told me she loved me,” Amiya said. “… It was a like a huge accomplishment to me, because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. That’s really what made me cry.”
This being her third attempt to win the Youth of the Year award, Amiya didn’t think she would win.
“It was a shocker,” she said. “… When they said my name, I was like, ‘Wow, all my hard work finally paid off.’”
Her advice: “Never give up, no matter how long it takes.”
Amiya’s “dream school” is Spelman College. She also is considering Savannah State University. If that plan doesn’t work out, she can use the full scholarship she received from Columbus Technical College for being named Youth of the Year.
Motivated by watching her sister give birth and concerned about the pain she endured, Amiya wants to become an OBGYN and develop a way to make labor and delivery easier.
All of which amazes Pace.
“You wouldn’t know her back story because she doesn’t carry herself like that,” he said. “… Look where she started. Look where she’s going.”
This story was originally published February 16, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
