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With
a Little Help Bashime Finds the
Road to Success
In 1996 Bashime was 15
years old and struggled with making good decisions. Bashime
felt pressure from his friends to become involved with negative
and dangerous activities, like drugs and alcohol. Being a
middle child in a large family, Bashime often felt as if no
one in his family cared about him or paid attention to what
was going on in his life. That is until Bashime was introduced
to the Late Nite program at the YMCA, where youth
have the chance to get involved with sports and fitness activities,
while learning about relationships and responsibility.
Bashime felt an instant and strong
connection with the staff at the YMCA since his family was
not involved with his life. The staff was concerned about
some of the issues he was facing and made every attempt to
steer Bashime toward a path of success and opportunity.
Bashime is now 21 years old and
is currently enrolled in college, working full-time, and now
volunteers as a mentor for other program participants. Bashime
helps with discussion time, talking to the youth about values,
relationships, and making positive choices in their lives.
Thanks to the help of United Way funded programs like Late
Nite at the YMCA, last year more than 28,000 youth were able
to make positive choices in their lives through leadership
and mentoring programs.
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