At the Boys & Girls Club the highest honor a Club member can achieve is being named Youth of the Year.  A Youth of the Year accomplishment is won only by an outstanding Club member in their junior or senior year of high school. This year, the prestigious award, along with its $10,000 scholarship, was given to Arturo Quintero Jr., a Club member at the Boys & Girls Club of the Tri-County Area in Berlin, a unit Club of the Oshkosh organization.

Arturo competed against four other admirable teens from both Oshkosh and the Tri-County Area to win his title. Each teen told a panel of judges about their personal life story and time spent at the Club.

Arturo’s story was an emotional one as he spoke of his responsibilities at home including caring for his younger sister, as well as cooking and cleaning, so that his parents could be with his youngest brother Leo at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.

Last February, Arturo’s brother was diagnosed with cancer and Gliolastoma. Since his diagnosis, Leo continued to get sicker. Arturo told the judging panel he prayed for his younger brother everyday and was hoping a miracle from God would save him. Sadly, three days after Arturo won the Youth of the Year title and his opportunity to attend college, Arturo’s brother Leo lost his battle with cancer.

To cope with his pain throughout the last year, Arturo dove into activities at the Club. He created a break dancing class and joined the teen leadership group called Keystone. He bonded with fellow Club members and staff and found a place in the community where he truly felt he could be just another teen.

The Boys & Girls Club served as a home away from home for Arturo and also helped him with his family situation by providing him and his sister with food and money to help pay for bills and gas.

For an 18-year-old, Arturo has been through a lot, but the attributes the judges admired most in Arturo were his high moral standards. Arturo made positive life choices by choosing not to partake in high school drinking parties and by choosing not to smoke. He simply puts it, “I choose not to.”

Winning the Youth of the Year award, provided by the Boys & Girls Club of Oshkosh’s Scholarship Endowment Fund, has opened many doors for Arturo, mainly because of a $10,000 college scholarship the Club gives to each winner. 

“I guess this means I should start looking at colleges for next year,” Arturo happily told Center Director Harper Mruk after he heard of his big win. 

Winning the Youth of the Year title is not something Arturo takes lightly. 

“The Youth of the Year award means a lot to me. This will help me raise money for college and will allow me to start saving. This will affect me by starting to choose a college and deciding what I want to do with my life,” said Arturo.

Arturo pledges as Youth of the Year to be a role model to his peers, younger Club members and family.

“Everyone at the Boys & Girls Club is extremely proud of Arturo and his accomplishments,” said CEO Marc Dosogne. “He is charismatic, genuine and honorable and will represent the Boys & Girls Club well in his time spent as our Youth of the Year.”

Since being awarded the scholarship, Arturo now has dreams of becoming an actor one day. He hopes to attend college to study music and video production in the fall. 

Please join the Boys & Girls Club of the Tri-County Area and the Boys & Girls Club of Oshkosh in honoring Arturo Quintero’s milestone achievement as the Youth of the Year. 

For more information about the Youth of the Year program or how you can support the scholarship endowment fund, please contact the Boys & Girls Club of Oshkosh at (920) 233-1414 or call Harper Mruk at the Boys & Girls Club of the Tri-County Area at (920) 361-2717.