For Kentlake junior Xena Aguayo serving the Falcon community is about more than praise or awards. It’s about giving back and encouraging her peers to overcome challenges, and knowing it’s OK to fail.
Aguayo was named Outstanding Student Advocate by the Kentlake PTSA in January.
“It’s better to give than to receive, that’s a really important one,” Aguayo said of the most important things she has learned through participating in leadership classes at Kentlake. “I guess, like when I’m having a hard day or something, when I give to somebody, it just makes me feel better.”
Aguayo was originally going to attend Kentwood, but when she heard about Kentlake she decided to give the school a try.
“I just really liked it so I decided to stay,” Aguayo said.
The list of events at Kentlake that Aguayo has been involved with is long. She took a lead roll in organizing the school’s first multi-cultural night last year and helped organize a breast cancer awareness drive that raised more than $6,000, and Falcon Revolution. She also helps put on school assemblies and has been a speaker at Future Falcon Night and at multiple freshman retreats.
On top of all that she’s the associated student body vice president this school year, and serves as a State Farm Grant representative.
“I just like everything we do, it’s so exciting,” Aguayo said. “Last year we planned our first multicultural night and it was like super stressful because it was like three of us altogether planning this big event. And we were so stressed out, we were worried that we wouldn’t have very many people come and the turnout was just amazing. We had over 200 people in attendance and I was so shocked.”
Juliet Perry, a member of the Kentlake PTSA awards committee wrote in an email that it was the impact Aguayo has had that stood out to the committee.
“We selected her because the list of her contributions was so extensive, and the impact she has had on the school’s culture is very impressive,” Perry wrote.
Aguayo didn’t know she was up for the award and was surprised by the committee’s decision.
“My reaction was I was a little shocked,” Aguayo said. “There are so many great students that I feel like they all deserve the award… I collaborate and I work with them all the time and I feel like they are just as deserving. I felt really honored, honestly, because they choose me.”
Kentlake leadership teacher Greg Kaas said it’s not only Aguayo’s hard work, but her openness with her peers that makes her stand out, something that was also noted by the awards committee.
“That’s what’s so great about her — for her to share her story with other kids,” said Kaas, who had Aguayo in the first year leadership class last year. “She’s just very real…. She’s like the kids next to you at lunch, or in math class, or walking down the hall.”
Aguayo has spoken the past two years at the Freshman Retreat for Kentlake students, sharing her journey and why she does what she does — she speaks openly about her struggle with depression and anxiety and the affect that both had on her.
“I did that not because I wanted them to say, ‘oh feel sorry for me,” Aguayo said about speaking at the retreats. “I wanted to let them know that at Kentlake, or at any point in your life, it’s OK that you fail as long as you get back up. I’ve just asked for help from my counselors and everything else.”
Decreasing isolation that teens can often feel and working to make the Kentlake community stronger are two big factors in what drives Aguayo.
“It’s really important to let people know even though you do so much and people see you as accomplishing a lot of things, I have my problems,” Aguayo said. “I’ve failed a lot of times and I want to let people know that even if you fail you are succeeding. Because that’s what it takes to know how to change something.”
