It took some guts for Chally Thap to say it.

But when he stood before a packed room at Weyerhaeuser’s headquarters in Federal Way on Friday during the annual Communities In Schools breakfast, his nerves soon faded as he smiled.

“My name is Chally Thap and I am a 16-year-old from Des Moines who has been out of school for four years,” he said. “Ever since I got expelled from Sacajawea Middle School, I never returned back to school, until now. And it took some guts to say this because I’ve been scared for so long.”

Throughout the four years he was not attending school, he learned from his “dumb mistakes” and discovered that knowledge and education are the key to success.

“I finally recognized and realized what I was doing was wrong and I just finally had to do what was right, for not only myself, but for my older brother, my super strict but loving parents and for my older cousin, whose last words for me were to go back to school — or else he would check on me,” Thap smiled. “And ever since then until when I stepped through the doors of Federal Way High School, I just knew it was home.”

His freshman year has not been easy.

He’s struggled with his grades and communication, which caused his grades to suffer.

“But these of the many complicated struggles are what made me who I am today, to cope with, remain resilient … and to persevere and fight to the end,” he said, noting he finally turned his “Fs” into “As” and now has 10 high school credits.

Wanting to further himself, he also enrolled into a culinary arts program at the Puget Sound Skills Center in Burien, which offers college preparatory and career education in 18 fields to students in several districts, including Federal Way.

But then he hit another obstacle — how to get to school. For the past couple of weeks, he has been riding his bike from Des Moines to Burien, about a six-mile bike ride. However, Thap spoke with Federal Way High School staff members, teachers and the school principal to talk about this struggle that many Federal Way High School students have with trying to get to the Puget Sound Skills Center.

That’s when he met Kaitlin Thomas, a Communities In Schools outreach coordinator at Federal Way High School. Thomas found a community partner to help support Thap and provide him with an ORCA card so that he may ride the Metro bus at no cost.

“I’m looking forward to the future and I’m competent and ready, also by the way, I’m going to be a certified chef on June 2,” Thap said, as some school board members and others in the audience cried, just before they gave him a standing ovation. “… And from personal experience throughout my fight for education, we need people like Kaitlin Thomas. We need Communities in Schools. Thank you for all the support Mrs. Thomas. You rock!”

Communities In Schools of Federal Way raised $61,000 at the annual breakfast to support students in Federal Way Public Schools.

The organization works to remove barriers to learning through their model of school outreach coordinators, of which they have recently expanded from three school sites to 10. The breakfast highlighted the coordinators’ work and how they support student success.

The Federal Way school district has a free/reduced lunch rate of 60 percent and supporting students’ basic needs is one of the major services Communities In Schools provides. Among other things, coordinators support students who may not have enough to eat. Each coordinator offers healthy snacks and take-home food for students who need it.

“Students can’t learn if they are hungry,” wrote Communities in Schools Executive Director Tracy Oster in a media release. “Having access to food at school allows students to focus in class.”

During the event, the organization named Bridget O’Connor “Tom Murphy Mentor of the Year.” O’Connor began mentoring her student four years ago and the relationship has had a positive impact on both of them.

Communities In Schools has 150 volunteer mentors who meet with students one hour, one day a week, serving 9,000 kids on a school-wide basis and 600 students on an individual basis.

For more information or to volunteer, visit www.cisfederalway.org.

Photos by Carrie Rodriguez, the Mirror and Ed Streit Productions.