Leika Q.C. – Youth of the Year Candidate
Leika, affectionately known as “Lei” or “El” by her family and friends, is a 15-year-old 10th grader from New York. Described as outgoing, bubbly, and sassy, she brings energy and positivity everywhere she goes.
Leika chose to participate in the Youth of the Year competition because she values the strong bonds that form among candidates and sees it as a powerful opportunity to share her story. She credits the Boys & Girls Clubs of Lanier with shaping not only who she is today, but also who she is becoming. Through her involvement, she has learned that trusting God leads to better outcomes than relying solely on others—an insight she carries as both a lesson and a guiding principle.
Passionate about dance, Leika is a member of her school’s cheer and dance teams, as well as the Teen Center’s Boys & Girls Club dance team. For fun, she enjoys dancing, creating arts and crafts, and exploring her favorite subject—science—because it opens her eyes to the world around her. Her goal is to attend college and pursue the future she has always imagined for herself. While she is still exploring her career path, she dreams of becoming a professional dancer and studying dance at the collegiate level.
Inspired by her mother, her older sister, and Mr. Derric at the Teen Center, Leika believes in lifting others through her story. Her advice to other teens is simple but powerful: everything turns out better when you turn to God instead of others. She lives by the mottos, “Everything happens for a reason” and “YOLO: You only live once.”
Outside of school and the Club, Leika enjoys listening to music by Jhene Aiko, Billie Eilish, Manuel Medrano, and a wide range of other artists. Her favorite shows include Gossip Girl and Stranger Things, and her go-to snacks are fruit, eggs, or strawberries with Nutella. If given the chance to travel anywhere in the world, she would choose Paris, France.