LORAIN, Ohio — Editor's Note: The following story contains a reference to a suicide attempt. Reader discretion in advised.
Summit Academy School in Lorain is a safe haven for students. It's also a place to flourish, because many of the students there have learning challenges like autism or ADHD.
The school settings may look familiar: The lockers, the signs on the wall, the kids chatting in the hallway.
But there's one classroom like no other, and that's where you'll find Mr. Kyriece Brooks, the culture coordinator at the school.
"So often, a lot of kids in this generation, they don't have the time where people really hear them out and make them feel valued," Kyriece told us.
His students hear him sing a lot. That's because it's helped him since he was a child.
"I always used it as my coping skill," he told us.
Yet you have to wonder if his students know what a gift his voice really is, because for the first seven years of his life, he didn't have one.
"I couldn't talk," Kyriece said. "I grew up in the foster care system. I got taken away from my mom and my dad when I was three."
He bounced from home to home, not able to tell social workers the truth.
"I couldn't tell them that I was being abused in so many different ways by the foster parents. I couldn't speak," he said.
Eventually, he did, thanks to the one and only foster mother who was kind and believed in him.
"My one foster mom said, 'Kyriece, when you talk ... when you do begin to talk, you're gonna say something important one day,'" Kyriece said.
That message stuck with him when he aged out of the system at 18 and during his darkest hours.
"I was very depressed. I was in 12th grade and I just wanted to just take my own life," he shared.
He was in a coma for two and a half weeks. Then, those words came flooding back.
"I promised myself that if I make it through this, that I was gonna make a difference in many children's lives so that other children don't have to go through what I went through," Kyriece said.
And true to his word, he's done just that. In 2013, Kyriece started the nonprofit, Lorain Stop the Violence.
"That's why I started my journey and that's why I put all of my time, my little money that I did have at the time, into this program. I would rather go without just to save a child," he said.
He saved another child, too: His son William. When Kyriece was 21, he adopted William at the age of 8.
"I was young, I didn't know how to be a parent. I didn't know what it was gonna cost me or anything. And I just said yes," Kyriece said.
"Not everybody makes it out. And I wanted him to make it out," Kyriece said.
A few months ago, Kyriece found another calling at Summit Academy.
Each day, helping to resolve conflicts, find resolutions, and most importantly, making the students feel seen and heard.
"It makes me feel like I'm something, like I'm important," student A.J. Francis said.
That's the goal, according to Mr. Brooks.
"Just to really empower them so much that even when people say no, there's still a yes inside of you," Kyriece said.
Mr. Brooks operates on their level. That's because he knows their struggles and their pain.
"He talks about our problems. It just makes me comfortable, I like being around him," A.J. said.
In Student Council, he's teaching them to stand up for themselves.
"He always considers your ideas and he'll try and get it done for you," student Saige Kerlin told us.
The biggest gift he gives to his students? Is helping to find their voices. For, there is no stronger than the one inside.
"There's always light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how many ups and downs. Just push your way through because there is hope at the end," Kyriece said.
To learn more about Lorain Stop the Violence, click here.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Someone is available to help 24 hours a day.
Editor's Note: The following video is from a previous, unrelated report.
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