Recent Woonsocket Graduate Brings Leadership Lessons Back to Community

Brittney Keophoxay of Woonsocket stood out among local students feted with a luncheon last Friday as they completed eight week paid internships at the Boys and Girls Club of America. The five students, including Keophoxay of Woonsocket and Andrew Beauregard of Cumberland, were acknowledged this summer for outstanding student leadership demonstrated by their commitment to community service. They were granted the valuable internships and traveled to Washington, D.C. to participate in a Student Leadership Summit.

Keophoxay is the daughter of Laotian refugees, and without, perhaps, the advantages of some her student leader peers. While the others prepared to move on to distinguished universities such as Salve Regina and George Washington, Keophoxay will remain close to home, keeping her options open by beginning at the Community College of Rhode Island in the fall. Keophoxay is small, and reticent, but her achievements are not. She was an Honors Society member at Woonsocket Senior High School, and a winner of the 2011 State Civic Leadership Awards. She is a Volunteer Coordinator at the Laotian Community Center of Rhode Island. She has led volunteer projects at the Laotian Temple and the Salvation Army. She was the only girl on the varsity wrestling team, and competed against men in mixed martial arts. At her high school graduation, she was given the Theresa Pereira award for leadership. She counts as her mentor the rising Vimala Phongsavanh, the first Lao-American elected to a United States School Committee.

In addition to Keophoxay and Cumberland’s Beauregard, Rhode Island was represented in the program by Samuel Karlin of Barrington; Providence resident Nadia LaFrance of St. Mary’s Academy, Bay View; and Alexandra Ventura of Warwick. The quintet were among 230 students selected nationwide to participate in the philanthropic program started in 2004 by Bank of America. During the trip to Washington, D.C., the students participated in a series of workshops, including sessions on environmental sustainability and nonprofit leadership; seminars crafted to identify leadership strengths and weaknesses. The students were immersed in activities on Capitol Hill, including briefings, and working with Operation Homefront to prepare care packages for military families. A highlight was an extended discussion, hosted by the author, of the issues raised by Wes Moore’s book The Other Wes Moore. The itinerary in D.C. was designed to prepare the students to contribute in their own communities, and to demonstrate how that service in collaboration with nonprofit and governmental organizations can affect positive change well beyond their neighborhoods.

Their internships at the Boys and Girls Club in Providence permitted the students to generalize what they’d learned and provided them with valuable professional experience while supporting the goals of the Boys and Girls Club. The students relished the opportunity to design and direct activities at the Club. Beauregard led a theatre workshop, the others facilitated courses in hip-hop dance and chess, and a book club. Keophoxay taught martial arts.

Keophoxay seems poised to apply this summer’s lessons in her own community. “My parents are Laotian refugees,” she said, “they work graveyard shifts. They made sacrifices for me, and taught me the importance of community.”

Her ambition is to be a doctor of physical therapy, and to work to elevate the reputation of the southeast Asian community. She will begin a course of general studies at CCRI in the fall, and hopes to transfer to a local school.