LIHUE — There was a time when Rendle Mones did not believe life was worth living.
During his middle school years, Mones said he suffered from depression because he didn’t have any close friends.
“I’d be eating lunch alone and no one would bother to sit or even talk to me,” Mones recalled. “Embarrassed and humiliated, I had to face the fact that I was a loner.”
Mones said he eventually starting hanging out with the wrong crowd because “I thought that was the only kind of friends I could make.”
But that all changed one day while he was hanging out with his friends at a Lihue park. On that day, those friends, he recalled, asked him to smoke marijuana with them.
They gave the marijuana pipe to Mones, and as held it in his hand, several thoughts, prompted by advice given to him by his mentors in Torch Club, a leadership program for middle school students, ran through his mind.
“What am I doing?” he thought. “Would JR (the club’s director at the time) be happy about this even after the advice he gave me?”
That advice — to think first about how his parents or role models would react before doing something — gave him the courage to give the pipe back and walk away, Mones said.
The ninth grader at Kauai High School now says he feels proud to call himself a member of the Boys and Girls Club in Lihue.
“Being at the Boys and Girls Club put me back on the path to being myself again,” Mones said. “The staff members, they make me feel wanted. They treat you like family, give you great advice and help you to become a leader.”
Being a positive role model for younger children through the organization’s programs, he said, now gives him a new outlook on life.
“Not to be bragging or anything, but sometimes, when I would walk into the room, they would cling on to my arms and legs and I’m thinking, ‘Whoa! Are these kids actually excited just to see me,’” Mones said. “It made me feel like I actually have a purpose to live for.”
Mones, however, is not alone.
His story was one of eight featured on Saturday during this year’s annual Youth of the Year Luncheon, where select Boys and Girls Club members on Kauai showcase talents gleaned from the organization’s Youth of the Year Academy.
“It’s a testament to the amazing impact that the staff at the club have on youth every day,” Christian Naea, director of Kauai programs for the Boys and Girls Club of Hawaii, said. “The club changes lives.”
This year’s Kauai candidates for Youth of the Year included Mones; Frances Kaye Abundo; Charlene Hanie; Chailan Kanahele; Minoaka Kuehu-Sheldon; Waihealani Reynolds-Kane; Grace Peralta; and Luke Rita.
The Youth of the Year Academy, Naea said, is open to all high school students on Kauai and usually meets once a week from October to February.
Throughout the formal program youth participants are taught interviewing skills, poise, public speaking techniques and how to dress in a professional atmosphere.
Toward the end of the program, each of the island’s three clubhouses in Lihue, Waimea and Kapaa pick two candidates, who compete on Oahu to become Kauai’s representatives in the state’s Youth of the Year competition.
As a part of the state competition, eligible students who have been members of the Boys and Girls Club for at least two years and are high school juniors or seniors complete three-minute interviews, write two essays, and submit transcripts and letters of recommendation.
The Youth of the Year finalists from Kauai who were selected for this year’s state competition are Grace Peralta of the Lihue clubhouse and Luke Rita of the Kapaa clubhouse.
The winners of that competition will be announced at the Youth of the Year Luncheon on March 8 on Oahu.
Frances Kaye Abundo of the Lihue clubhouse was the winner of the Youth of the Year’s Kauai competition.
But at the end of the day, regardless of who won, Boys and Girls Club administrators say the impact that the organization has had on Kauai is priceless.
“I just feel like I’ve been finding my purpose in life and being able to do what I enjoy, so it has just been awesome for me,” Lihue Clubhouse Director Angela Agustin said. “It’s heart-warming to know that we’re making that kind of impact. This was just a small snippet of it, but I think the impact is far greater when you think of all the kids who we service.”
• Darin Moriki, county government reporter, can be reached at 245-0428 or dmoriki@thegardenisland.com. Follow him on Twitter at @darinmoriki.
