Winning a 2015 Youth Dolphin Award is just one in a long list of accomplishments Malibu High School (MHS) junior Brianna Galeas has earned for her hard work and dedication to the Malibu community, including winning Co-Youth of the Year with the Boys and Girls Club of Malibu.
But Galeas, current Boys and Girls Club Leaders in Training president here in Malibu, has no plans of slowing down now. Galeas has already earned a whopping 280 volunteer hours through the club.
“At first I was just trying to get my 80 [volunteer] hours required for graduation, but … it wasn’t something I wanted to do just for the hours necessarily,” Galeas said.
“The reason I went above 80 hours was because it’s more about working for my community and just giving back … I still do community service even though I’m done, and I always will,” Galeas said.
On top of working as a mentor through the Junior Staff program and volunteering in Malibu at such events as the Malibu Marathon, Galeas took the opportunity to travel to Hawaii to help rebuild a Boys and Girls Club after a storm wiped out the facility there. The trip opened her eyes to the needs of kids like her in other parts of the country.“I didn’t only give back to my own community, but I made a difference in somebody else’s. The Boys and Girls Club is their second home — it’s where they go after school and … they’re always there. For me, it was special because I got to rebuild that home,” Galeas said. “It really gave me a sense that home is a feeling, in reality, because no matter where you go, you will always have a home.”
Soon, Galeas will be looking for a new home away at school, where she hopes to be the first in her family to attend college.
“[The Boys and Girls Club] also really inspired me to want to go to college because … when I was younger, I would never have thought about my options,” Galeas shared. “I just really want to make my family proud, and the Boys and Girls Club proud.”
And being the first in her family to earn a degree?
“It would be a success toward my entire family. I know that — especially my mom — she’s been waiting for that day, the day that I get into college and the day she has to go drop me off there.”