🌟Meet BeLit's Class of 2026!🌟

Khalid McDaniel

Class of 2024

PECO Apprentice

Thank you and congratulations to this year's graduates! I'd like to share my 5 daily principles that have helped carry me through life.

1. Keep your beliefs first!

You’re going to have to believe in something or someone to help keep you grounded while navigating through this thing called life. 

2. Stay humble!

Never forget where you came from or the ones that helped you get here. Always show gratitude, mercy, and grace. Be thankful. Always reach back to pull someone else forward. That’s the way we’re going to all get ahead in life.

3. Have patience!

Take your time. Always measure twice, but cut once. Small steps, great distances. What was meant for you won’t miss you.

4. Discipline!

You’ll have to stay well-grounded and take responsibility. No partying, no drinking, no drugs, no staying out late, no hanging with the weak and uncommitted. Get the proper rest so you can give 120%. All that stuff will be there before and after you. 

5. Consistency!

Whatever it was that got you to this point in your life, just keep going, don’t stop. Don’t look back because you’re not going that way. Keep pressing forward. You got this!

Try being a blessing to someone today. If you’re not helping make someone else’s life better, then you’re wasting your time. While doing so, you'll become a better person as well. 

That’s my time. Thank you for yours!

Dominique Slaughter

Class of 2024

U.S. Navy Electrician

To know me is to know that I am a very shy, humble person and still get nervous when speaking in front of too many people. But here I am.

This truly means the world to me. Thank you for allowing me to be someone who represents BeLit - someone who can go into big rooms and places to show why we have made it this far.

The impact BeLit makes is tremendous. I'm just a girl who grew up in Southwest Philly who always wanted so much more than who and what I grew up around, so I promised myself I would never settle for nothing less.

I'm learning to give myself more grace and appreciate how far I've come in life. I hope this award motivates every graduate here, and every graduate after me, to never give up and remember that you are exactly who you think you are. Never lose confidence or let anybody tell you otherwise.

I'm genuinely so proud of every last one of you here today, so I want to say this award isn't just for me, it's for all of you as well.

I want to give a huge shoutout to my daughter, who is my reason why, for never giving up no matter how hard life got.

To the whole BeLit community who helped put this event together to pave a way in education as well as the workplace, you are amazing and deserve all the love, flowers, and appreciation, so I'm giving that to you today.

Thank you for this award, and thank you for seeing me.❤️