Eighteen-year-olds are not typically described as seasoned, but sitting across from Holden Jeffries, it’s a word that comes to mind.
He answers questions with intention. He pauses before responding, not to search for something impressive to say, but to make sure what he offers is honest. He’s become a familiar presence around Northwest Arkansas, advocating for the Boys & Girls Club of Benton County, speaking about food insecurity, and organizing peers and community leaders around practical solutions. This is the same teenager who helped launch a food pantry at his high school, who builds and stocks blessing boxes across the region, and who has spent four years preparing for another shot at Youth of the Year. Yet across the table, he’s simply Holden — thoughtful, steady, attentive — clear about who he is and what he cares about.
In 2022, Holden became the Boys & Girls Club of Benton County’s (BGCBC) youngest Youth of the Year winner in his first year of eligibility, going on to secure the State title and represent Arkansas at the SW Regionals where he placed in the top three. For many teenagers, that kind of recognition might have felt like the finish line. For him, it felt like access. “I think that’s what made it so special about winning so young, is that I knew I would have all these opportunities to continue to grow, do more volunteer work, advocate more for food insecurity, but also do more of my own leadership journey,” he reflects.
He didn’t spend the next four years defending a title. He spent them expanding it.
As an eighth-grader, he was already known for his infectious positivity, always eager to talk to new people and make others feel at ease to just be themselves. Many watched him win at 14 and were struck not just by his accomplishments, but by the way he carried himself: confident without pretense, inspirational without a trace of ego. Spend five minutes with Holden and you can’t help but root for him. There has been a hum of anticipation for this moment among longtime Club supporters, business owners, educators, and nonprofit leaders in the community who have witnessed Holden’s impact grow steadily alongside him. Named the Benton County 2026 winner in February, Holden returns to the Youth of the Year stage with more experience, more poise, and more opportunities to make a difference.
“But at the same time, I’m not someone to take anything for granted,” he emphasizes. “I know there are other youth who are working hard and have issues that are important to them. I know that no matter what, these opportunities have still been here, and they’re still going to be present even if I don’t make it all the way. If I lose in March, or if I lose at Nationals, or even if I win, I’ve been true to myself, so that’s what is most important to me.” Just days before this issue went to press, we were so proud to learn that Holden secured the State title once again and will represent Arkansas in Dallas on May 14 at the Southwest Region Youth of the Year event.
Opportunities to interact with other kids and activists beyond Benton County have expanded his view of the realities communities face and the role young leaders can play in addressing them. Holden has advocated for Boys & Girls Club of America and for fighting food insecurity in front of lawmakers in Washington, D.C. He’s participated in three different national programs for BGCA. At conferences, Holden has listened to young people speak about gun violence, mental health, native services, and other challenges unique to their regions. He served on the steering committee for the national Keystone Conference — one of 11 teens selected from across the country, including one from a military base in Germany — helping host an event for roughly 1,200 youth, advisors, and staff. He remembers standing on stage, delivering a message of encouragement urging everyone to do what they can to help people in need.
“It really opened up my understanding of how many issues there are that affect people,” he shares, “but also how many good young people I see in the world like myself, and that is something I find super inspiring. When you get to see that kind of national impact, you see how many people are truly working together to make change.”
The Boys & Girls Club has long been designed as a catalyst for that kind of growth. Founded more than a century ago, the national organization serves more than 3.6 million young people each year through after-school and summer programming focused on academic success, character and leadership development, and healthy lifestyles. In Benton County alone, more than 3,000 school-age children walk through Club doors annually. For many families, the Club is more than a safe place to land after school. It is mentorship. It is structure. It is exposure to opportunity. It is a steady presence during seasons that may not feel steady at home. The Club’s mission goes beyond supporting kids in the moment to help shape them into capable, compassionate leaders prepared to serve their communities. Youth of the Year is its highest honor — recognizing achievement, character, service, and vision.
“Youth of the Year is one of the most powerful examples of the Boys & Girls Club mission in action because it reflects what happens when young people are given consistent support, encouragement, and opportunities to grow,” asserts Cheryl Hatfield, CEO of the BGCBC. “At the Boys & Girls Club of Benton County, we see incredible potential in every child and youth who walks through our doors, and YoY highlights the young people who have embraced those opportunities and transformed them into leadership, service, and purpose. Youth of the Year reminds our community that when we invest in young people, we are shaping the leaders, advocates, and change-makers of tomorrow.” In addition to demonstrating active involvement at the Club, earning the YoY distinction requires months of work through a comprehensive application process that includes essays on personal growth and values, a résumé and cover letter, letters of recommendation from both Club mentors and community leaders, and a timed speech presented before a panel of judges. Each applicant also selects a platform — an issue they commit to understanding deeply and addressing outside the competition itself.
Food insecurity became Holden’s platform during his first run at Youth of the Year. He’d witnessed its effects in people close to him and his community, but was stunned to learn the pervasiveness of the need once he began researching and volunteering. Over the past four years, raising awareness and fighting food insecurity on the ground has become a sustained commitment. “I know I must act,” he insists in his “What Matters to Me” application essay — one of three they have to complete, along with “Personal Growth and Values” and “Club Experience.” Arkansas is currently the most food-insecure state in the nation, with 2026 data revealing the issue to be even more dire than previously understood: nearly 30% of Arkansans lack reliable, consistent access to food. That figure unsettles him. “Thirty percent is a mind-blowing statistic. Do you know four people? That means that, statistically, one of those people is going through food insecurity,” Holden says simply. So, his response has been methodical.
In ninth grade, he helped establish a food donation box at his high school to give students discreet access to essentials. He then played a role in launching a school pantry that now opens twice each month to serve families across the district, for which he was recognized as the Gravette Bright Futures 2023 Volunteer of the Year. In the community, he’s partnered with a Boys & Girls Club of Benton County board member to build and install blessing boxes — small, freestanding cabinets stocked with nonperishable food and necessities — at each Club site in the county. His advocacy has raised nearly $3,000 to keep them stocked, and conversations are underway with local officials about expanding into additional high-traffic locations. “What I need to do is think of ways to alleviate some of the anxiety so that embarrassment does not stop people from getting the help they need,” Holden says of the responsibility he feels. These boxes are available and approachable 24/7, creating simple opportunities for access without stigma attached.
A national YoY title, he notes, would amplify that work, helping him realize his long-term dream to see a blessing box outside every Boys & Girls Club location in the country. Scaling the idea would require partnerships, funding, and persistence. It would also require the same mentality that has guided Holden since he was 14. “Be bold,” he encourages, describing the internal dialogue that keeps him moving forward. When he connects with people or local businesses in growing his network of supporters, he reminds himself not to shrink from the ask. “Don’t be shy. It’s not about you; it’s about getting help for those in need. Really be the change that you want to see in the world — that’s something that keeps me rooted in service.”
Holden admits he’s also learned the value of decentering himself in his leadership journey. Sharing the example of group projects at school, classmates tend to look to Holden to take charge. He will, but he also takes care to make sure that everyone’s strengths get time in the spotlight. “If there is an artist in the group who doesn’t really feel that talking in front of people is who they are, but they find confidence through art, that is a great time for me to step back because I’m not going to be the best at everything,” he explains. “As a leader, it’s my job to make decisions some of the time, but some of those decisions I need to make are to let other people shine.”
That mindset has defined his relationships within the Club, especially with the Youth of the Year winners who followed him. “Holden and I’s relationship is one of laughter, learning, and banter,” shares Kayleigh Spoon — back-to-back honoree in 2023 and 2024 — describing their friendship as layered and complementary. “He taught me in so many ways when it came to my first round of competing for Youth of the Year. He gave me pointers from the local, state, and regional aspect. He also helped me get out of my comfort zone and be able to network confidently. Where he was strong in communication, networking, and speaking, I was good at writing and articulation. So, we had both sides of the competition covered and the early stages of our professional careers planted in some real good soil. We balance each other out. That’s what I love the most about our friendship: the balance.”
Holden speaks about Kayleigh and 2025 winner Zoey Hinojosa with unmistakable pride. When he describes their wins, their growth, the way they refined their messages, how he gained new perspectives from both — there is only admiration. Watching others succeed has become one of the most meaningful parts of his own journey. Success, in his view, is not diminished when shared; it multiplies. “That’s how I thrive,” he explains. “I feel safest when I’m with people who are positive, comforting, and supportive. That’s the way I want to be toward others because I want to see other people thrive that way as well.”
It’s a perspective shaped by what has been poured into him. Mentors, family, teachers, coaches, Club board members — all have invested time, energy, and belief, and Holden carries that investment with gratitude rather than entitlement. “This is just a little piece that I can do to be able to give back for all the opportunities that I’ve been blessed with and truly be a part of something that is greater than myself.” And it doesn’t stop with YoY or with the Boys & Girls Club. Business has always been an interest, he admits, so he plans to study organizational management and leadership when he starts at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville this fall, inspired by Northwest Arkansas’ corporate leaders as examples of what is possible when success and service intersect. “I want to make a name for myself through being someone who’s confident and collaborative and can make an impact in the business world, and then I want to be able to use that success to give back.”
For now, Holden remains grounded in the rhythms of senior year. Our interview is taking place the day after Gravette High School’s boys varsity basketball team won their district playoff game to advance to the regional tournament for the first time in six years. Though the Lions lost the tournament, he doesn’t have much time to dwell on the season’s end between Youth of the Year prep and his last couple months of high school — not to mention Track & Field starting up soon! “Sports are definitely a way for me to just get lost in doing more stuff that I love,” he says of the outlet anchoring him through hectic periods of travel and competition. “It’s been a lot of fun, and it’s kept my composure through everything.”
Staying true to himself and sharing what he is passionate about has shown Holden that people are more selfless than they believe. That, when faced with a clear need that invites them into a practical and accessible solution, people step up. His work has never been about spotlight or recognition; it has simply been about helping people while creating space for others to act on the compassion they already carry.
When he reflects on the eighth-grader who first stepped onto the Youth of the Year stage, Holden doesn’t measure growth by accolades. He thinks about resolve — about all that he is still driven to accomplish in his Club journey, his advocacy, his leadership, his life — and hopes that younger version of himself would recognize that the determination is still as fierce as ever. “If anything, it’s grown. My passions have grown and expanded into new things, and I’m taking on as many roles as I can to make a difference and truly have that personal growth in my life that I didn’t even know was possible at just 14.”
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