Malibu Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year and 2015 Malibu Times Dolphin Award winner Caleb Gomes was honored on a county-wide stage this past Saturday.
On March 26, 24 Youth of the Year winners from Boys and Girls Clubs across Los Angeles County were honored at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles. There, Gomes and Mark Perez of the Whittier Boys and Girls Club were selected to serve as Co-LA County Youths of the Year and will move on to the State of California’s Youth of the Year competition on April 6.
The Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year program promotes and recognizes teens’ service to their club and community, academic performance and contributions to family.
Gomes is a senior at Malibu High School (MHS) and resides in Oxnard with his mother. In his initial Youth of the Year speech, he highlighted childhood hardships of moving 20 times in 17 years and being left by his father at age one. He also spoke about volunteering and falling in love with the Malibu Boys and Girls Club during his time as a junior staff member, as well as his life goal to create an organization that lessens burdens of poverty around the world.
Gomes mentors Malibu Boys and Girls Club members through the Leaders in Training Program and helped build a Boys and Girls Club in Soweto, Africa the summer before his junior year.