#1 Motivational Speaker for Youth and Youth Adults

I had the liberty of being introduced to Mr. Richard Celestin while working as a community school director in the transfer high school environment for the Child Center of New York. Most of the students didn’t receive much support from home and school and lacked motivation and guidance toward their education and transitioning out of high school and into college and career. With the community school model being fairly new to the school, students were having a difficult time forming relationships and connections with teachers, counselors, and school personnel and those connections are necessary in order to aid to the student’s social emotional health. After meeting with Richard and learning about his debate program, background and upbringing, I felt he could relate to the students. To assess the student’s interest, Richard ran an assembly where he talked about his struggles and hardships of growing up as an African American male and how he was able to obtain an education and find ways to reach higher heights. It was clear that he needed the students to understand that he can relate to them and that they can accomplish great things regardless of how much they are hindered by their status in society and the color of their skin. The students were very receptive and were interested in learning more about how he formed relationships and connections with people in the community and how those relationships helped him become successful. Richard’s professional appearance and the way he was able to connect with the students on their level of understanding went a very long way. My staff and I had to start directing the students back to class because they wanted to spend the rest of the day connecting with Richard. It was impressive how he was able to captivate his audience, especially with it being his first interaction with the students. He has an ability to engage and get others to listen and empower them to aspire to their goals. After this interaction, it was clear that Richard would be an asset to the school and my agency. He is currently running programming out of several sites within my agency and I am looking forward to continuing our partnership and assistance to the youth we service.