‘I’m Just So Grateful’

When Jeffery Boakye started his freshman year at Texas A&M University in 2013, it didn’t take long for him to realize he was unprepared for the demands of college.

The biomedical sciences major “felt like a failure” when he began making Cs in his classes. On top of his academic struggles, he was lonely. Boakye had trouble connecting with his peers: “We came from very different backgrounds.”

For Boakye, who moved from Ghana to Houston with his father at age 6, the path to Texas A&M was an uphill battle. While his father tried to find work, Boakye was left with caretakers, saying he frequently felt like an intruder in other peoples’ homes. After moving in with his father in elementary school, the family struggled to make ends meet. It wasn’t uncommon to go without electricity for several days, and Boakye often went to school with dirty clothes. He describes himself as an angry child during this time, and his bitterness grew as the severity of his father’s troubles escalated.

When he looks back on this period, Boakye remembers feeling he’d never reach the place he’s in now: Just two days after walking across the stage at Reed Arena last month with a Master of Engineering in Civil Engineering with a focus in environmental engineering, Boakye landed a job. This month he’ll move to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he’ll work for a company specializing in technologies that aid doctors during heart surgeries.

“I never thought I would graduate,” said Boakye, 29. “Back in the hardest times in my life, it felt like I was never going to make it here.”

In high school, the neglect Boakye experienced at home snowballed until a concerned guidance counselor contacted Child Protective Service his freshman year. He was placed in the state’s foster care system for a few months before being adopted by his best friend’s mother.

His status as a former foster child paid for Boakye’s higher education, but like many teens who age out of the system, Boakye started college lacking basic life skills and without any parents or adults to rely on.

This changed his sophomore year, when Boakye became involved with Unlimited Potential, an organization that supports former foster youth by connecting them with resources and mentors. That’s how he met volunteer Glo Hays, a retired middle school principal who had recently moved to College Station.

She describes Boakye as a perfect example of someone who “was given lemons and made lemonade.”

“He will tell you he’s one of the lucky former foster kids, but the bottom line is, he took advantage of the opportunities he’s been given,” Hays said.

Youth who age out of the foster care system often lack the kind of basic life skills that most young people take for granted, Hays said. When Boakye met Hays, he didn’t have a driver’s license; no one had been around to teach him how to drive as a teen. He also lacked important paperwork like a birth certificate and immunization records. “Jeffery grew up not knowing how often you should brush your teeth – he certainly didn’t know you’re supposed to have dental appointments,” Hays said.

When Hays and Boakye first met, she would pick him up once a week from his dorm on the Texas A&M campus and take him out to eat. Soon, Boakye started to attend church with Hays, and before long became a regular fixture in her home.

“When you hang out with Glo, you just feel the love radiating,” he said. “She has so much love to give. That was the first time I really met someone who when I was with them cared more about my happiness than about their own.”

As Boakye puts it, once he met Hays, “life got easier.” She became “a true grandma in every sense.”

Boakye is quick to give credit to Hays and others who “stuck their necks out” on his behalf to help him succeed. But “all the credit goes to Jeffery,” Hays said.

On top of attending classes, Boakye also earned his driver’s license and U.S. citizenship. He graduated in 2018, then spent time working for AmeriCorps, a federal agency focused on national service and volunteerism, and later as a research assistant for a genetics lab in Houston. Throughout the pandemic, Boakye also supported himself by delivering food through services like DoorDash and Favor before returning to Texas A&M in 2021 for graduate school.

Hays, who refers to Boakye as her grandson, said his upcoming move to Tulsa will be bittersweet.

“I’m 80 years old, and I see our relationship continuing for however long I live, because he’s just part of our family,” Hays said. “He has a stocking hanging on our fireplace at Christmastime, and we honor his birthday every year. He brought me a little bouquet of flowers for Mother’s Day. I think we’ll always be close.”

Before he graduated this spring, Hays surprised Boakye with his Aggie Ring – a Texas A&M tradition he’d also hoped to be part of, but couldn’t afford on his own.

“It feels really amazing, like I’m actually a part of Aggieland,” Boakye said. “The ring was something I never got to experience, so I feel so proud walking around with it now. I feel more accomplished.”

Post-graduation, Boakye said he feels a step closer to the dream life he envisioned during childhood.

“I used to think my life was going to be stuck exactly the way it was forever,” he said. “I’m just so grateful because not a lot of kids have what I’ve been given. They don’t have the opportunity to have unconditional love poured into them. So I’ve been blessed in that I’ve had a lot of people rooting for me. Without that, I don’t think I would have made it here.”