The summer after his graduation from college, camp counselor Paul Minorini, L’91, was floating across a lake in Canada on a flatbed barge with a group of underprivileged youths headed to an island camp run by Boys Hope Girls Hope (BHGH). One of the boys clutched his arm tightly and sputtered: “I’m really scared. I’ve never seen this much water before.” The boy had grown up ten minutes from Lake Michigan. In that moment, Minorini realized how this program could transform lives.

Two decades later, Minorini finds himself president and CEO of the Missouri-based nonprofit organization, which houses and supports needy children all the way through college. He’s discovered that the best use for his law degree is not drafting briefs but throwing a football with hardscrabble kids as he shepherds their dreams.