Samples was presented an oversized $15,000 scholarship check at the awards banquet last month in Columbus. For his win, he will serve as a Boys and Girls Clubs ambassador this year, have an opportunity to meet and talk to elected state officials, and next month, compete with other state winners for the Midwest Youth of the Year award.
He will forever remember 2024.
That doesn’t mean his life has been full of celebrations.
When you talk to Samples, an 18-year-old junior at Fairfield High School, it’s obvious he went through a dark period a few years ago.
He participated in the Hamilton club for six years until he was 12. Since the club didn’t have a teen program at the time, Samples aged out at 13.
Not much later, Samples disclosed he was gay, and some of his friends and family turned their backs, he said. He estimates he considered committing suicide 10 times.
“Not a lot of acceptance,” Tommy John, executive director of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hamilton, said when discussing how Samples was mistreated. “It was tough on his mental health.”
Samples, sitting next to John, added that “no one cared for me. I was isolated. It was like I was in a dark hole, a dark place.”
Luckily for Samples, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hamilton provided a bright, safe haven.
Last year it started a teen program after receiving funding from the Hamilton Community Foundation. That allowed Samples to win the local and state youth awards, the first for the Hamilton clubs in their 70-year history, John said.
Samples returned to the club last year and immediately felt at home again. The club serves about 200 kids a week at its three locations, John said.
John said Samples is an example of what happens when an at-risk teen receives the right mentorship.
“There is a place for you; a hope for you,” he said, referring to the message delivered to Samples.
Now Samples hopes to use his platform to be the voice of teens who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. He said they need to understand, regardless of how they are viewed by certain people, they are loved and accepted.
Research has shown that LGBTQ+ young people are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers. The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ+ young people (ages 13-24) seriously consider suicide each year in the U.S. and at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds.
“You have to be there for them. You could say the wrong thing that could push them off,” Samples said. “Mental health is no joke.”
There was silence on the phone.
Then Samples delivered a powerful, two-word message to those who feel left out: “You matter.”