Alumni Give Back to Chamberlain Students
Story by Kaija Howe, Shayla Phillips, Jason Green, Gregory Granberry and Makaila Weldon.
Photos by Kaijah Howe, Aniah Wallace and Greg Granbery.
Several Chamberlain alumni who currently attend Friendship high schools have returned to Chamberlain this Fall to share advice, kind words, humor and stories about how they continue achieving “The Chamberlain Way”. Angelique Dove, a Friendship Collegiate Achiever Scholar, Sequan Peay, Friendship Collegiate football player and Caira Johnson, Friendship Collegiate academic honor roll student are a few examples of kids who achieve despite challenges, who are interested in helping younger kids and who keep our community positive. The alumni share experiences to help the young students of Chamberlain so that helps to prepare them for high school and think about college.
Angelique Dove is a senior at Friendship Collegiate. She is a determined student and a great example of student leaders who achieve. A piece of advice that Angelique told us is to work hard your freshman year—it matters. She describes The Chamberlain Way as goals that focus on being college bound and valuing education. “When you decide on a high school, think about the opportunity for a scholarship for college.” We appreciated her time very much because she took time to talk about her scholarship and how to try to be active and participate in school.
Sequan Peay is a 9th grade student athlete. He is a football player this year for Friendship Collegiate Academy. Sequan works hard to face challenges no matter how tough his academics, sports or life may get. “The way I balance football and school is by making work come first and then the rest of the day I go to practice. The position I play is safety. When we play well as a team, we achieve greatness. Friendship Chamberlain has high expectations and Friendship Collegiate Academy has even higher expectations. The advice I have for 8th graders is to work harder than before because then you will not have to take reading lab and math lab. The college I would like to go to is Howard University to play Bison Football and get a great education. My favorite class is reading. I achieve my academic goals by taking Cornell Notes which takes a lot of effort. You have to get good grades to participate in activities. I have a goal to get drafted and play in the NFL for the Kansas City Chiefs.”
Alumni Caira Johnson is an example of a two-year Tier One champion. She applies it to her work and grades. Caira is very proud of the Chamberlain Majorettes and encourages all to catch one of their performances.
“Never say never, because if you say never you will not be able to accomplish anything.” This is what Caira told us at majorettes one day during practice. She also shared her academic success stories with her younger sibling and majorette students at Chamberlain to make sure they are successful instead of believing “I cannot”.
Kaija Howe, George Jones and Shayla Phillips are 8th grade scholars, Jason Green and Greg Granberry are 7th grade scholars and Makaila Weldon is a 5th grade scholar at Friendship Chamberlain Academy.