Denver Businessman Helps Raise $75K For Boys And Girls Club That Helped Him
DENVER (CBS4) -- Oluwafemi "Femi" Ogungbenle was born in Nigeria. He and his family immigrated to Denver when he was just 13, but uprooting your life isn't easy especially when you're starting high school.
"It was difficult to have to come to a different country, a different continent to be able to make new friends all over," he said.
Every day on the bus to school he saw the Boys and Girls Club in Montbello.
"One day, I just wanted to go in there to see what it was like," Femi said.
Inside he found the community he had been missing.
"It was almost like they loved you and they cared for you," he told CBS4 Reporter Michael Abeyta.
That support helped him stay out of trouble.
"Knowing that right after school you're going here and then right after here you're going home it definitely just kept you off the streets" he said.
Femi now works at Allstate. Recently, his boss asked him if he wanted to help the company raise money for and donate time to a Boys and Girls Club in Denver.
"He said it's the one in Montebello. Once he mentioned that my mind just went straight to, 'Oh my God, I remember going there,'" Femi said. "I still have my little ID card."
Femi -- along with Allstate -- helped raise $75,000 and spent the day sprucing up the same club he called his own not so long ago.
"I was in the gym doing the backboards and repainting them as needed and I connected with that because I remember making so many threes and layups on them," he said.
Going back to help felt like going home so Femi is still giving back.
He shoots hoops with the kids some days and also coaches soccer.
He says it's the least he can do because the Boys and Girls Club gave him so much.
"It's just such a good feeling you know," he said.
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Michael Abeyta is a 4th generation Coloradan and a Multimedia Journalist for CBS4. His stories can be seen on CBS4 News at 5 & 6. He is on Twitter! Follow him @AbeytaCBS4.