American Education Week: From YMCA Participant to Mentor, Dae’zuan Yates Gives Back to Sulphur Springs Youth

Growing up in Sulphur Springs, Dae’zuan saw how easily young people could be pulled toward trouble. Today, he works in the same YMCA program where he once found guidance, offering kids the kind of support that helped change his own life. 

As a child, Dae’zuan didn’t want to go to the YMCA. He didn’t want to be outside, and the neighborhood around him could be difficult to navigate. He remembers fighting, drugs and friends going to jail – and knowing he didn’t want that path for himself. 

Then he kept coming back. 

He joined the Y at the start of elementary school, taking part in after-school programs and summer camp through the Sulphur Springs PK-8 Community Partnership School. One memory still stands out: swimming and canoeing at YMCA Camp Cristina. But the lasting impact came from the people he met there. Meagan, his first counselor, helped him through a difficult time and, he says, “changed my life for the better.”

That support stayed with him as he took a big step: becoming the first in his family to attend college and graduate. He went to school on a football scholarship in Kentucky, far from his home in Florida. Now he hopes his experience can encourage his younger brother – and the kids he works with – to believe they can do it, too.

After graduating, Dae’zuan returned to the Y as an after-school counselor at Sulphur Springs PK-8. He brings his own experience to the work, whether he’s helping a student through a tough moment, or sitting down with two kids to help them talk through a conflict. 

He also knows what it can mean when a young person is grieving. After losing his own mother at a young age, he can relate to a student who experienced a similar loss. When the boy feels down, Dae’zuan listens and talks with him.

That, he believes, is what young people need most from adults: “guidance and mentorship, and a person that will listen.” The Y, he says, gives kids a safe place to spend time, connect and find support.

Asked what he would tell his younger self, Dae’zuan answers: “We did it.”