Youth Dolphin Award winner Caleb Gomes has served and mentored Boys and Girls Club members both in Malibu and across the world.
The Malibu High School (MHS) senior traveled to Soweto, South Africa the summer before his junior year, where he helped build a Boys and Girls Club teen center, did maintenance work and spent time with local students.
“A lot of kids there live in slums,” Gomes said. “A lot of them only have one outfit to wear and one square meal to eat. The club actually provided meals that the kids missed. People brought in donations so the kids could have clothes to wear.”
Gomes recalls bonding with students during his trip, particularly a 12-year-old boy named Charles.
“He didn’t talk very much, but I remember his eyes lit up every time he saw me, and I just got to know him a little bit,” he said. “It was great because he confided in me.”
Gomes has mentored Boys and Girls Club members in Malibu through the Leaders in Training program since becoming a club member his sophomore year. Along with tutoring younger students, one of his favorite ways to serve is through playing basketball with middle school students and teaching them skills he has learned as a member of the MHS boys basketball team.
The local community recognized Gomes’ service efforts by awarding him with the Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year honor for the past two years. The award is given to one or two standout members of each local Boys and Girls Club Chapter, and winners are chosen based on two essays and a speech.
In his speech, Gomes highlighted a childhood hardships of moving 20 times in 17 years and being left by his father at the age of 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.
“I was happy to put my story out the way I did,” he said. “At first it was difficult to talk about some personal things, but I decided to let go of troubling times for me to have a greater influence on the younger kids here at the Boys and Girls Club.”
Gomes and fellow Youth Dolphin winner Brianna Galeas were this year’s Co-Youths of the Year for the Malibu club. Since Gomes is a senior and Galeas is a junior, Gomes will move on to represent Malibu in the L.A. County competition.
Attending college is the next step for Gomes, as he plans to become a first-generation college student in his family. He has already been accepted to Louisiana State University and Washington State University, but is still waiting on responses from other schools before making his decision.
Pursuing a job in the world of basketball is Gomes’ career goal, and he hopes to major in business or sports medicine. “[Getting a college degree] would mean the world,” he said. “It would give me social mobility that will change my family’s opportunities. It will create a future — and a happier future — for my mom and me.”