When Lance Latimer watches Jerell Gillette interact with his peers at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Bellevue’s teen center, he sees inspiration.

A senior at Interlake High School, Gillette has been coming to The Club, as it is affectionately known, for seven years and after finding a home at Project Learn in the Hidden Village Apartment Complex. Last weekend, he joined other club representatives from around the state at the Governor’s Mansion in Olympia as the Bellevue representative for Youth of the Year, which was selected from all of the club’s roughly 200 members.

But when Gillette began coming to the club, it wasn’t to get help with his homework or even make new friends.

It was to find an escape.

During his freshman year at Interlake, Gillette found himself in a situation most high school boys dread.

After striking up a relationship with a young woman, the two were soon entangled in the euphoria that is teenage puppy-love. While things went well initially, Gillette soon found himself cut off from all communication with the girl, much to his surprise. To his dismay, her mother’s disapproval was the primary reason and left him unable to gain any closure to the situation.

Things went from bad to worse when he heard the devastating news the girl had committed suicide.

“I thought I was 100 percent to blame,” Gillette said.

Deep depression followed as Gillette tried to process the events and his feelings, but instead began internalizing the anguish. While his classmates adjusted to the newfound challenges of high school socially and in the classroom, Gillette dealt with a far more emotionally charged set of issues.

Eventually, he found himself at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Bellevue at Hidden Village, a branch of the club near where he and his family lived. While his initial motivation was seemingly simple, the results have been anything but ordinary for both Gillette and the club.

“I just really connected with the staff members,” he said. “They did whatever they could to make me feel comfortable.”

The connection built slowly as staff members showed Gillette places he could listen to music and eventually participate in recreational sports around the club. Before long, he found himself integrated into the programming and eventually, a leader among his peers.

In the years since emerging from the depression, Gillette has become a fixture at The Club. He is a member of the Keystone Group, a leadership-focused sounding board for club youth that also runs the student-store. The funds from sales act as both a fundraising tool for conventions around the country, but also provide valuable lessons in business and give younger members something to aspire to.

Lance Latimer, who began with the Boys and Girls Clubs in 2001 and has been in his current role as Teen Services Manager at The Club since 2008, said Gillette has become every bit the role model club administration hopes to develop and the ideal selection as Bellevue’s Youth of the Year.

“The younger kids look up to the Keystone Group, but especially Jerrell,” he said. “They want to know how to get to that level.”

With his own story of heartache at growing out of tragedy only a few years ago, Gillette said his hope is to show other kids who may be struggling with school, their social life or even the loss of a loved one, there is still a network of support available.

“I’m not here to make their choices,” he said. “I want people to say I’m easy to talk to.”

While he wasn’t selected to continue in the Youth of the Year competition at the regional level (the competition goes all the way to a national stage, with the President announcing the Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year at a special event), Gillette said the past few years have given him valuable perspective and determination.

He will use both of those when he continues his life after high school by enlisting in the Marine Corps, where he plans to study logistics and also take business classes online. His ultimate goal is to be a self-managed music artist, creating music with the same kind of positive message and soulful vibe that helped him when he was at his lowest point.

“I just want to help people the way music helped me,” he said. “There’s always that challenge.”

Contact and submissions: jsuman@bellevuereporter.com