By Ariana Chengges ’17 | Staff Writer

Sixteen seniors in the community were awarded a Youth Appreciation Award during a ceremony Thursday night by the Lakeshore Optimist Club of Grosse Pointe, four of these students were from South.

The Lakeshore Optimist Club volunteers their time to contribute to many different youth-related activities, Youth Appreciation Chairman Kent Commer said.

“The Optimist Club has been around since 1980 and has continued its legacy since,” Commer said. “I am proud to be part of this and to see how people grow over a majority of time. When I was in high school, I could have never done what these kids do today.”

Students work very hard in and out of school and it does pay off in the end, award recipient Matthew Kennedy ’15 said.

“I was and still am honored to receive this award. Everyone who won this truly deserved this,” Kennedy said. “I believe I won because with my past couple years at South, I have given a lot of my time and effort in to be where I am today.

There were four students from Grosse Pointe South who won this award, Kennedy said. Olivia Lang, Taylor Wouters, Nicholas Morris and Matthew Kennedy, all ’15, were nominated. Seniors from Grosse Pointe North, University of Liggett and Harper Woods High School also were recognized with Youth Appreciation Awards.

Award recipients were chosen due to their high involvement in the school and their service efforts in the community, Commer said.

“I am in the solar car club,” Morris said.  “I have been for my entire time at South. I worked with the National Honor Society (NHS), and I tutor a lot of students. I love to help people, and what I want to do to influence others is for them to gain their full potential in whatever they do to carry on their lifestyle.

Both Morris and Kennedy said they want to help people in life and guide them to where they want to go.

“I want to have other people believe in what they can do, and if they put their heart out to something that they can truly do without feeling like they are being judged, then they should go out and do it,” Kennedy said.

Members of the high schools’ staffs nominated the optimistic people; the members of the Lakeshore Optimist Club did not pick the recipients, Commer said.

“All of them are outstanding and wonderful students who will go far in life,” Commer said, “I know for a fact.”