{"id":2329,"date":"2026-08-13T21:22:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T21:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/?p=2329"},"modified":"2026-08-13T21:22:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T21:22:30","slug":"the-day-believing-in-yourself-felt-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/the-day-believing-in-yourself-felt-possible","title":{"rendered":"The Day Believing in Yourself Felt Possible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Last month, Abigaelle and Aliyah from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/locations\/florida\/collier-at-immokalee\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/locations\/florida\/collier-at-immokalee\/\">Pace Collier<\/a> stepped into a crowd of 400 young dreamers in Orlando at the DJJ Office of Prevention Services&#8217; 5th Annual &#8220;Unleashing You&#8221; Youth Summit. The event was built to help students explore what leadership means and reflect on their future goals. Throughout the day, speakers guided sessions on communication, decision-making, and how choices can shape our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At 17, Abigaelle was fully in during her session. Her enthusiasm and presence caught the attention of speakers and room monitors alike, and by day&#8217;s end, she proudly held a trophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;It made me feel heard and showed me that I had an impact on others attending the summit. It was a big achievement,&#8221;<\/em> Abigaelle said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For Aliyah, Abigaelle\u2019s achievement became motivation for what she could do next. <em>\u201cSeeing my peer win an award motivates me to step outside my comfort zone and participate more in opportunities like this,\u201d<\/em> she shared. Her journey at Pace has already changed how she sees her future. Once unsure of what she wanted to do after high school, Aliyah now wants to become a registered nurse or a psychiatric nurse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes, seeing someone your own age step forward is enough to make you think, \u201cMaybe I can do that too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abigaelle left Orlando knowing her voice had made an impact. Aliyah left ready to push herself a little further. And both returned to Pace with something to carry into whatever comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month, Abigaelle and Aliyah from Pace Collier stepped into a crowd of 400 young dreamers in Orlando at the DJJ Office of Prevention Services&#8217; 5th Annual &#8220;Unleashing You&#8221; Youth Summit. The event was built to help students explore what leadership means and reflect on their future goals. Throughout the day, speakers guided sessions on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2332,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"post_tag":[14,61],"class_list":["post-2329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-believing-in-girls","tag-pace-collier"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2329"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2336,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329\/revisions\/2336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacecenter.org\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_tag?post=2329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}