Whether Charleye Perry (‘22) is styling hair in cosmetology class or working on the Five Healthy Towns organization, she is always scoping out ways to aid students in need. Charleye is a compassionate person who aspires to spread positivity among high school students and staff in many ways.

Perry dreams of working in cosmetology when she’s older, and the cosmetology consortium class she is attending through the school is helping her do so. Perry believes that working in cosmetology would not only put a smile on her face, but also the faces of her future clients. 

“This year I started doing cosmetology,” Perry said. “I know this is something I want to do with my life in the future, and of course things change, but I feel like the program has set a path for what I want to pursue in my life.”

Perry has also put a vast majority of her time to an organization in Chelsea called the Five Healthy Towns organization. The towns in this program include Chelsea, Dexter, Grass Lake, Manchester, and Stockbridge. The organization’s goal is to encourage the community to lead a healthier lifestyle, whether that is physically or mentally through planned out programs. 

“Mr. Pedlow reached out to me and thought I would be a good candidate for the organization,” Perry said. “I was shocked of course, but I felt so privileged to be given such an opportunity.”

Perry’s involvement in the Five Healthy Towns organization has opened her eyes to endless ways to help her struggling peers and in fact a way to serve the whole community around her.

“You need someone to encourage you, someone to say, ‘You got this,’ and I am here for that,” Perry said.

COVID-19 has impacted the way Perry and her team of four in Chelsea have had to work on the Five Healthy Towns organization. They have had to improvise activities that they normally would do in person. This has made Perry work extremely hard to continue with the same goals for the program that she has had before. 

“Right now we are filming videos of workouts that people can easily perform at home,” Perry said. “I want to continue to help the community both mentally and physically throughout these unprecedented times.”

Perry feels she’s really grown as a person throughout high school because of the program and the opportunities it offers. The most important thing to her is that all her peers feel like they are in a safe environment and feel loved. She wants to make sure every student knows they can reach for their dreams no matter how impossible they seem.

“If you are a student at Chelsea High School and you have an opportunity for something that maybe not a lot of other people have, or if a teacher or anyone else, who has great respect for you reaches out and tells you: we choose you,” Perry said. “You should take the opportunity, because you never know where it is going to take you, and you never know what you’re going to learn from it.”