SUCCESS STORIES - NICK CUNLIFFE

Nick Cunliffe works at the Challenge Learning Center with a calm, assertive and friendly demeanor. His easy smile belies a past when he aimed to disappear in social interactions. “My goal was to be a ghost,” he says, “I wasn’t as there as I would like to be.” After walking out of the home of his alcoholic father, moving to live with his mother, and then being kidnapped by his father, Nick’s home-life offered little stability, which affected his personality and his performance in school. “At home, it was bad to be noticed. In class I wouldn’t say a lot of things. I went to a big high school where it was easy to disappear. Some teachers did not know your name. I would just drift through. I felt like no one cared, so I stopped caring.” Nick dropped out of high school in the middle of his junior year.

He and his mother spoke to the principal of an alternative high school, where Nick enrolled, found motivation, and encountered a Challenge Learning Center day program. Nick enjoyed the program, and when CLC staff returned later that year to recruit for the year-long LEAD program, Nick signed up. At first, he was weary to attend, yet the persistence of the CLC staff in calling to invite him to their weekly meetings helped to open him up and to know that people cared about him.

Through LEAD, Nick began to lead activities, and develop relationships with the other teens and adults mentors in the group. Nick shares that his experiences participating in and leading CLC’s ropes courses taught him the following core lessons, “The people around you – the friends and family who you care about – they mean well. Utilize them, that’s why they’re there. Together, you are a lot stronger than being alone.” He passes on these lessons as a CLC course facilitator and mentor to middle school students, holding regular check-ins with them to talk about their life experiences and the hardships that they face. Nick graduated from high school a semester early, and after overcoming a challenging work experience, CLC hired him as a part-time staff member. He currently attends Foothill College where he is training to be an Emergency Medical Technician, as he studies photography, English, and East Asian history. Now, Nick’s goals in life stand in brilliant contrast to the former one he held: “I want to have fun and take care of the people I care about, because they make me happy.”