At around 8 p.m. on Feb. 6, senior Ajala Anavberokhai posted to her Facebook wall, “By the graces of God he has shown me who he is and what he can do. I won youth of the year tonight.”

The post has 30 likes and counting.

Anavberokhai was chosen as the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence Youth of the Year after delivering a speech at the Lied Center about what Boys & Girls Club means to her. In March, she will deliver her speech at the state competition in Topeka. The state winner will attend regionals in Texas, and the regional winner will go to nationals in Washington, D.C.

Anavberokhai described the experience as “a shocker.”

“I don’t know how to explain it,” she said the next day. “It hasn’t really hit me yet.”

Anavberokhai has been involved in the organization for almost 11 years: first as a child, then as a volunteer and now as an employee working at Hillcrest Elementary School. She works with participants on homework, physical activity, Internet safety and many other life skills.

“We do all kinds of stuff to help them get through life,” she said.

Anavberokhai and last year’s Lawrence winner, now-University-of-Arkansas-student Trei Dudley, have been friends since elementary school. Dudley was named the National Youth of the Year in 2012, but she wasn’t too busy to return to her hometown to announce Anavberokhai’s name at the annual Youth of the Year event.

“She was happy for me,” Anavberokhai said. “She just knew that I’ve been working so hard and I kept trying and trying.”

Anavberokhai’s winning speech was partly written and partly improvised last night under the lights of the Lied Center.

“I was up there, and I kind of forgot everything I had memorized and went with the flow and made up something else,” she said, “so I hope I actually give my real speech [at the state level], but you never really know what happens onstage.”

But whenever and wherever the words occurred to her, the speech did the trick: Anavberokhai will be speaking again in Topeka on March 11.