SUCCESS STORIES - HAIDEE RAYGOZA

With a great smile, and a glint in her eyes, Haidee Raygoza tells it as it was: “I was just a rude, nasty, really angry kid.” She recounts how she used to be a bully, and would pick on other kids. “People remembered my name,” she says, “even though it was because I was a bully.”

Through Youth Leadership and Community Service, Haidee found people that connected with her for positive reasons. “What LEAD really showed me was friendship,” says Haidee. “In middle school, I yearned to be popular. I’d eat lunch with the popular kids - but they did not care about me. With LEAD, they cared about me. They noticed when I did not come to a meeting.” It was a connection with one of the students at her first meeting that led Haidee to return to LEAD. “At the first meeting, I thought it was something for troubled kids or mushy counseling. I remember the first person I met. It was Nick - he admitted that he liked techno. That’s what made me come back the next week.” Of the adult volunteers she says, “I know they really cared about me. They took time out of their schedules to help me. They helped me cope with my friend going to jail for killing his brother.”

Haidee engaged in one of the first mentoring match-ups that LEAD has done where adults outside of the LEAD program take time to invest in students’ lives, and Haidee has flourished in character because of it. Says Haidee: “I think they’re [the adult mentors] the reason that I’m not so into myself. My inner peace has grown so much. I’m not into dressing in little clothes to show off, or the make out scene. I do not mind sitting alone at lunch, or by myself reading a book. Most adults are so much more at home with themselves. I guess it’s rubbed off on me.”

A LEAD connection has also allowed Haidee to intern with the NutraBella Company, and gain a mentor there. Haidee likens the various adult mentors that she has encountered as trainers that walk with her in the marathon of life: “It’s really cool because I know they’ve got my back. With them I feel like if I do lose a race, they won’t be mad at me, and I could try again.”

In response to these new relationships and experiences, Haidee responds: “Thank you God! I’m not embarrassed of my religion. Sometimes people just smile and nod. Occasionally, I’ll get the person that’s negative. I tell them, ‘You don’t have to be negative.’ I just remind them to be respectful. Right now God’s been opening my eyes and really been blessing me. God says, ‘Just let Me do all the work.’ I say, ‘Just open the door and I’ll go through it. I’m just a sheep, just tell me where to go.’ I feel like I’ve been going in good places.” A junior now, after graduation from Santa Clara High School, Haidee wants to travel, and change the world “in a good way,” she says. She also hopes to work as a late night talk show host like one of her role models Conan O’Brien.