Every year at our annual Adventure Challenge unGALA, we honor a young person who has shown incredible courage, resilience, and heart. This year, we proudly celebrated Shawn Carter. Below is a transcript of Shawn’s acceptance speech.
Hi, my name is Shawn Carter. I am 16 years old and I’m from the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago. Other than the violence, it’s a good place to live.
At home my 2 younger brothers come to me and ask me questions and sometimes they just come and talk to me about anything. I have 8 siblings overall, and I help them when they need it. The main thing that I help them with is homework or if they need fixing things. This past year and a half really brought me closer to my family. My relationship with the people in my home is strong and could always get stronger.
Before joining Chicago Voyagers, I spent some time outside but not as much as other teenagers go out because the area I’ve grown up in and how bad the violence is. My experience with Chicago voyagers has been a ride! At first, I missed like the first 2 or 3 programs because my aunt is a nurse so we had to stay home and safe because of the pandemic. But when I came to the hiking program, I got to know all the programs leaders, and I had a really good time with them. I especially like getting to go white water canoeing. I wish that I had more programs with them.
The best time I had with Chicago Voyagers was on the camping trip to Turtle Flambeau, Wisconsin. There were so many moments that were fun but the main one is when we were playing bucket ball. It was fun because we were all trying to score a little ball into a small bag. It was also funny trying to see all the small people trying to score over the tall people, me.
During that trip, I was asked to be leader of the day. At first, I didn’t want to because I felt like I was going to fail and I was going to do a bad job, but the program leaders helped me get through it by talking me through it and helping me along the way. It was an experience I will forever be grateful for.
I just want to say thank you to the people that made it all possible for these experiences to happen. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE BIG HEART AWARD!!
