Venice Boys & Girls Clubs’ Youth of the Year Ceremony at Google

Here is a message from Venice Boys & Girls Clubs of Venice’s Emily Harvey

Boys & Girls Clubs of Venice held its annual Youth of the Year Ceremony at Google on March 7^th. We celebrated this year’s ten candidates; Kaylee, Ty, Imani, Destiny, Joseph, Christopher, Alex, Andrew, Maria and Althea, all of whom spoke about the process of applying and competing to be BGCV’s Youth of the Year and what the Club means to them. We heard from former Youth of the Year Winners Chris Rojas, Idalia Munoz, Julissa Zamora, Kimberly Woodruff and Miracle Evans on their experiences in college, what they have done since graduating and how the Club shaped their lives.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Venice’s Sean Mulligan

Tony Payne of Google

BGCV staff thanked our incredible judges, David Katz of Legion Partners, Tony Payne of Google, Desiree Flores of UTA, Kelly Kim of Yellow Fever, Susan Tenney of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors Foundation and Lisa Hennessey of Dream Jobs for taking on the daunting task of selecting one of the ten Youth of the Year candidates to represent our Club in the next level of competition.

2017-2018 Youth of the Year Winner, Ty Chavez.

The night was made even more special by our 2017-2018 Youth of the Year Winner, Ty Chavez. Out of 22 Youth of the Year Winners throughout Los Angeles, Ty was one of the six selected to move on to the next round of judging. Ty presented her final speech at Tuesday’s event at Google and we were all able to cheer her on and wish her the best of luck for her next round of competition on Thursday, March 8^th.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Venice would like to thank Google for hosting our awards ceremony and for donating over $14,000 to scholarships for all of our Youth of the Year candidates. We would also like to thank Kristen Kelly and Sonrise Westside Community Church for their contributions to the scholarship fund. Thank you to everyone that attended, donated and supported all of our wonderful teens throughout the process and good luck Ty!!