Picture a spring afternoon in Harlan, Kentucky in 2013. The sun is bright, the air crisp, the mountains surrounding the historic coal town are vibrant green, and eight-year-old Kaleb McLendon is doing what he loves — playing basketball on the blacktop behind the Cawood Ledford Boys & Girls Club. “Miss Kateena” Haynes walks toward the court with Kendra Calhoun, who is interviewing for a position at the Club, and introduces her to the kids in the after-school program.

As Kaleb and the others shoot hoops with “Miss Kendra,” he asks her where she’s from.

“I’m from right here in Harlan,” she answers, “but I went to Lexington for college.”

Kaleb pauses the game, in disbelief. “I thought people who look like us couldn’t go to college,” he says, pointing to his skin. Kaleb is biracial, and Calhoun is African American.

“Absolutely you can,” she tells him. “You can go to any college you want to.”

[PHOTO: Kaleb, second from left, during a Boys & Girls Club summer camp in 2016]

That was the beginning of a special bond that changed Kaleb’s life. The youngest of his seven siblings, Kaleb became the first in his family to graduate high school and then the first to attend college. Today, he is a sophomore at Union Commonwealth University (UCU) in Barbourville, Kentucky. He plays basketball for UCU, serves as a work study at the Boys & Girls Club on campus, and wants to make the kind of difference in other people’s lives that the Club made in his.

The Cawood Ledford Club is one of five sites in southeastern Kentucky that fall under the umbrella organization of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Appalachia (BGCA). Each week, the BGCA serves thousands of children through a variety of in-school and after-school programming, all free of charge to families and all with the mission to “inspire and enable all young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible, and caring citizens.”

Soon after meeting Kaleb, Calhoun was hired as the Unit Director of the Harlan Club and now serves as the BGCA’s Operations Director. She and her husband Harold became important role models and sources of support for Kaleb and his siblings throughout their youth and into adulthood.

[PHOTO: Harold and Kendra Calhoun pose with their two children.]

“Kendra always checked in on me with my grades, and Harold always encouraged me in basketball and sports,” Kaleb says. “If I needed food, or if I needed a way home, or pretty much anything, they were always there for me.”

In late 2021, Harold became ill with COVID-19 and passed away in January of 2022. Newly widowed and raising her own young children, Kendra maintained her commitment to Kaleb and the other Club kids. In the months that followed, she remembered a promise she and Kaleb had made to each other years before. 

Each year, thousands of Club teens from across the country participate in the Youth of the Year competition at the local, state, regional, and national level. The application includes essays, letters of recommendation, and a speech. Youth are selected based on how well they represent the character traits and leadership skills fostered by Club programming.

“Being named Youth of the Year is one of the highest honors you can get as a Club member,” Calhoun says. “It’s so moving when these kids give their speeches because they're talking about the adversity that they’ve had in their life, and how the Club helped them through that and shaped who they are. It's very impactful for the younger kids to hear not only the representative from their organization, but also from youth all across the state. It shows them they’re not alone and that other people are going through similar things.”

In Kaleb’s speech, he credited Kendra and Harold with putting him on the path to college. “My freshman year of high school, I almost flunked out, but Kendra helped me get back on track, and then I graduated with a 3.0 GPA. I went from a 1.5 to 3.0, and she was one of the main reasons for that, her and her husband,” Kaleb says.

Kaleb won the Youth of the Year award for the state of Kentucky in 2022, which meant that he got to travel to Chicago for the regional competition that summer.

[PHOTO: Kaleb stands on a balcony with the Chicago cityscape in the background]

“Going to Chicago was a really big experience because being from a small town, I’d never seen anything like that before,” Kaleb says. Calhoun and other BGC staff took him shopping in Knoxville for a new suit, accompanied him on his first plane ride, and made sure he got to see all the Chicago tourist attractions during their two-day stay.

He likes that he’s met people from all over the world at Union, but that it’s still a small, tight-knit community. “I’ve made a lot of friends from overseas, and the teachers are all great. I can go talk to any single one of them, and they will help me out individually.” 

Being on Union’s campus offers another perk, as well — a built-in connection to home. One or two days a week, Calhoun works at the Dr. Marcia Hawkins Boys & Girls Club at UCU, where Kaleb serves as a work study. When she’s on campus, she checks in with Kaleb: “Do you need anything? Do you need groceries? What items do you need that we can get for you to make sure you’re succeeding?”

[PHOTO: Kaleb on the basketball court]

This kind of wrap-around support is what the Club does for its kids. “We are here to provide whatever needs they have,” Calhoun says. “When they are at the Club, we want them to feel safe. Regardless of what’s going on, we want them to feel safe to come and talk to us and know this is a place they can always go no matter what.”

Up until now, the Club has only formally served kids up to age 18, and the kind of continued connection Calhoun has with Kaleb and his siblings has been informal. Starting this schoolyear, however, Clubs across the country can choose to adopt new programming for 18-24-year-olds, as well. Calhoun and CEO Kateena Haynes are enthusiastic about bringing these services to Union’s campus.

“I’m super excited to have a program doing just what I’m doing with Kaleb,” Calhoun says. “It gives us more time to instill those life skills and have what they need to succeed. We can have people checking on them, following up, and making sure they’re doing what they need to stay on track.”

“We can keep up with these kids, track the data, and ensure our programs are working,” Haynes adds.

[PHOTO: Kaleb with Club kids at the Union site]

The new programming for 18-24-year-olds will be available to all Union students in the coming months, regardless of whether they have been Club members previously. Full details of the new services are under development, but there will be no cost to those served.