Celebrate small wins along your journey. You are making progress.

Leila transitioned to the second grade this year. She participates in a variety of school activities beginning with the media team to start her day and ending her school day by participating in various extracurricular activities. On the media team she rotates through the anchor/co-anchor, weather reporter, and broadcast support roles. (Link: Production Video.) Some of her extracurricular activities are: Drama Club, Art Club, Reading Bowl team, and the Orff music ensemble. Despite her extremely active afterschool schedule, she is performing well in the classroom and was accepted into the Gifted and Talented program this year. Two additional accomplishments Leila achieved in 2025 was serving as her class representative in the school spelling bee, as well as being nominated as 'Miss 2nd Grade' for the school.

Outside of her academic achievements, Leila is a member of the community soccer team where she plays the role of striker. In Spring 2025 her team won the American Family All ATL Cup. Despite making it to the championship match again in the Fall they lost a hard fought match to their biggest rival. She also plays the center/forward position on a co-ed basketball team where she is showing consistent, daily improvement.

Naquia continues to serve as the Associate Director of Research Programs and Operations for the Emory School of Medicine. Having now served in the role for three years she is truly making her mark, exemplified by her serving as the lead on a project to institute a system to streamline research collaboration between Emory University and Grady Hospital. In addition to celebrating a successful implementation of a multi-institutional tracking tool, she celebrated her fifteenth year as an Emory University employee!

Outside of work, Naquia serves as the secretary on the board of the Parent Teacher Association. The group has been instrumental in increasing the financial position of the organization through increased parent engagement and facilitating several popular fund raisers.

In John's third year as an Assistant Vice-President at Citibank, he is looking to make his mark in ways similar to the high bar set by Naquia and Leila. During the course of 2025, he led several internal projects where he gained a reputation as a disciplined and detail-oriented leader. The efforts he led focused on proactively identifying project management deficiencies and improving executive level reporting for informed decision making. John is proud of what he accomplished professionally during 2025 and is looking forward to additional opportunities to add value to the organization in 2026.

During his spare time John sits on the executive committee of his community's development organization. In his role as Vice-President he worked with community leaders, community members, and outside entities to ensure community development is forward thinking and beneficial to all invested parties.