Leila Champion

#HaveYouHerd: Kicking off our first #FridayFeature for the month of May is someone who has found her lane and is blazing trails along the way. Despite some curveballs, she remains unbothered and focused on meeting her goals. Meet Leila Champion, the founder and Executive Director of The Champion Project. To learn more about her and her story, keep reading.

Leila Champion was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, and later relocated to Indianapolis. She attended Tindley Accelerated School, and it was here that her sense of personal agency really began to blossom. Leila began to envision what she wanted for her future while also recognizing barriers that existed for her and others like her. In true form, she decided to take action and do something about it. She founded The Champion Project. 

The Champion Project is a student-founded nonprofit organization dedicated to helping Black and Latinx students get into the best colleges. They encourage students to apply for every opportunity that comes their way despite any existing limitations they may be experiencing, while also helping students gain the knowledge they need to navigate postsecondary education.  This includes workshops, meetings, scheduling and financing college tours, and much more.

What makes Leila unbothered? Leila is a student and entrepreneur whose dreams are as high as the sky, and she has no intentions of not reaching them. Her personal experiences of being a first-generation college student coming from an extremely under-resourced background have always driven her to get what it is she wants, regardless of those who say that’s not realistic. She is not driven by the opinions of others, In fact, she often finds herself proving doubters time and time again.

When getting to know Leila, we found out that as a high school student, she was accepted to Harvard University’s Secondary School Program. When she didn’t have the funds to pay for this prestigious opportunity, she never doubted that she’d be able to attend. She put her determination to work and raised thousands of dollars so that she could attend the program! Talk about unbothered. 

Currently, Leila is a second-year student at the University of Notre Dame. When she is not working on schoolwork, she is running her non-profit, The Champion Project, and she is also working on publishing her first book! Stay tuned for that soon.

To stay up to date with Leila, you can follow The Champion Project on Facebook (@theechampionproject), Twitter (@theechamproject), Instagram (@theechampionproject), and their website: https://www.championproject.co/