Impact

An increase in self-confidence is one of the major outcomes of the D.E.B. program. After completing the program, graduates consistently tell us that they had no self-confidence before D.E.B. and that they now feel more ready to take on the world and their future careers. This growth in confidence was extremely clear in Temple Woods. Temple came to Lead2Change from a homeschooling background. In the beginning, Temple was very shy and quiet, rarely sharing her opinion in class and becoming visibly nervous when having to present. Now that Temple has graduated from D.E.B. her personal growth is extremely apparent, and she is excited to continue on with Lead2Change for another year before she graduates high school. Temple has even dived into leadership roles by becoming the Lead2Change Film Crew co-manager and running to become secretary of Interact Club, a community service-based program.

 

Driven by his love of information technology, Stephon Ricks hopes that his extensive practice and research with programming will be the perfect stepping stone for his profession in computer engineering. His internship at Stonehouse Water Technologies enabled him to learn HTML and CSS, two languages completely necessary in his desired career path. Some of Lead2Change’s biggest impacts on Stephon were being able to socialize and thrive in a diverse environment, writing a solid resume, and managing his time more effectively.