Stanislaus County teens get insights to a happy life

“Never give up,” was the message 13-year-old Zacharie Azevedo of Salida said he got from the Modesto GradNation Community Summit. That was precisely the message celebrity speakers and community leaders were sending.

Azevedo and about 250 other middle and high school students from around Stanislaus County piled into the Modesto Centre Plaza on Wednesday. United Way of Stanislaus was selected for one of of 100 summits held nationwide this year, paid for by America’s Promise Alliance and AT&T.

For the Salida teen, hearing American Ninja Warrior David “Flip” Rodriguez talk about what he overcame to find and follow his dream was inspiring. “Meeting Flip, he’s like the top,” Azevedo said, “I need to just keep going, follow my dream.”

Standing beside him, classmate Armando Reyes said what he would most remember was the celebrity’s back story. “Flip telling us his story, why he wore the mask. I didn’t think that was why he wore the mask,” Reyes said, shaking his head.

He wore a white or black mask while competing, Rodriguez told the crowd. “You couldn’t see pain, when I was scared,” he said, adding he also wore a psychological mask, never speaking of years of sexual abuse by his father. Now he tells his story, knowing it was not his fault, knowing it was a betrayal. But it is his story, he added. “It made me the man I am today.”

Students found white masks and a pen to decorate them in their event bags. “A lot of us wear masks growing up,” said Rodriguez, now a Hollywood stuntman. “Don’t hide who you guys are. Everybody’s different and that’s the great part about us,” he said.

“I see that he did not have a good life growing up,” said eighth-grader Robert Herrera of Waterford, adding he lost his dad at age 5. But Flip made it, Herrera said, and he could, too. “It’s keeping up my grades. I need to bring up my math – I can do it. Just gotta try,” he said.

“I’m inspired,” said Waterford Junior High classmate Tyler Silva, “to go to college and get a job.” Silva said he’s planning on a career as a designer.

Inspiration came from several speakers and artist Blair Rusin, who created a piece on stage as others spoke. Keynote speaker Jeremy Bates told the youths that hope was what saved him while growing up in poverty with a mostly absent mother. “I never lost hope in me,” he said.

“Anyone ever bored?” he asked the mostly junior high audience. “What do kids do around here? All I see is dirt, a few cows.” After a few moments acknowledging the grousing agreement, Bates turned the tables. “Boredom is an illusion,” he said, a product of idle minds.

“If you’re bored, that means you’re already boring as people – that’s not bad, you just haven’t figured out what you love,” said Bates, urging the teens to find what they like to do and follow it to a career.

Giving them food for thought, a career fair of sorts followed. About three dozen community members, from bankers to bakers, a nurse, an attorney, business people and nonprofit leaders, Modesto City Council members and city manager, told kids what they do and how they got there.

“I usually see people on their worst day, and I get to help them,” said Modesto police Capt. Craig Gundlach, adding that was why he got into police work. And, no, he said in response to the question in group after group, in 15 years on the job he has never shot anyone.

Ceres Fire Chief Bryan Nicholes explained the typical firefighter work schedule, 48 hours on, four days off. “They work 10 days a month. It’s a great job,” he said. “If you like to help people or you like excitement, every day’s a different day than the day before,” Nicholes said – and they get to drive the firetruck.

“Every day I get to work with knives and fire and food,” said chef Paul Topping, who said his career started with washing dishes because he needed the money. “I absolutely love what I do and I get to travel all over the world.”

This story was originally published October 19, 2016 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Stanislaus County teens get insights to a happy life."