Reflections from the Class of 2025
“However, there can be no doubt, in any past or present cohort’s mind, that in terms of accomplishment and impact on the community, the Class of 2025 is the most successful cohort in LEAD history.”
Mr. Janus said that about me and my friends at our senior banquet. That level of acknowledgement is something all of us took to heart. After 10 years of LEAD and 6 cohorts, we were deemed the most successful. As much as I would love to pretend we did it effortlessly, we weren’t always this amazing, once in a lifetime cohort.
As freshmen we were rowdy, unfocused and disconnected from each other (as freshmen often are). Part of that had to do with entering school as quarantine was ending. In addition to not being able to put faces to names, we also lost our 8th grade year and still had some of that immaturity left in us.
We bridged a lot of our divides by playing video games and sports together. Mentoring students at Idlewild Elementary School also gave us something to work towards which both brought us closer and taught us some responsibility. But I think we really began fostering our famous bond and work ethic when we were tasked with preparing a new home for LEAD in the downstairs of Cokesbury church.
The room was filled with all sorts of random junk. We spent months moving literally tons of junk out and hauling it to the recycling center, repairing and repainting the entire center, the whole time cracking jokes and suffering through it together. No matter how dependable we became over the next three years, we always kept a sense of humor among ourselves. A side effect of being so close, I like to think.
At the end of that year, I helped with the 2022 Senior Banquet. That year’s senior cohort was the group to launch the meal program for mothers trying to learn English at the church, the first to meet in our current basement space, had the first LEAD student to receive a full scholarship and were the first group to sign the legacy wall.
The whole event I kept thinking about my own group’s senior year. How much would we have to celebrate when the time came? How much would we leave behind in our signatures on the legacy wall? How much more did we still have to grow as a cohort? The answer was a lot.
Sophomore year was when we started taking on the projects that would define our legacy. A successful pitch party, continuing the meal program for ESL moms, and of course the one and only LEAD Summer Conference. All of these projects put the bonds we built to the test. And we didn’t just pass, we came out of it all stronger and closer than ever. Watching all of our skills come together to realize these projects reinforced our friendships and strengthened our collective resolve to reach our personal goals.
Junior year we decided to make some money. The church gifted us a food cart and we used it to start a business: Lil’ Burger. It didn’t get off the ground how we wanted because of regulatory obstacles, but we did extremely well at the events we catered. More importantly, our bravado led to us getting recognized by the Rama Swim Club, which gave us the opportunity to man their concession stand, a venture that netted us over $15,000 our first summer. Now future LEAD members have an accessible job opportunity in the summer and there are plans to expand the business to more pools.
Senior year. We only undertook one major project: The Giving Kitchen. Once again we excelled, building our customer base to 48 individual meals and running it for 10 weeks. But the real highlight was getting to appreciate just how far we came as a team. We always found time between our projects to hang out together, whether that was going out to eat or enjoying car rides around Charlotte. Even with more responsibility we still found opportunities to just have fun together.
My most cherished of these opportunities was the senior trip. Three days in a mountain Airbnb with all 15 of us. The whole trip was fun, but the best part was the last night. Sitting around the bonfire we all took turns talking about how we had grown and impacted one another. It was a moment of solidarity where we appreciated Mr. Janus for bringing us all together and appreciated each other for making it all worth it. I’ll always be proud of what we accomplished in those four years, but that night made me realize that the memories I made with these guys were the most important things to come out of LEAD, and will be what help to shape me as a leader in the future.
I am proud to say we were the first group to launch a business, serve over 1,000 free meals to the community, make history on at least four different occasions and become the most successful and tight-knit cohort in LEAD history. The future of Charlotte is brighter because my friends and I are walking into our time, and we are ready to lead and have some fun while we are at it.
—Anthony Frederick, LEAD Forward Class of 2025
