"I don't think what he did, I would have been able to do. At that point, I was a shy kid not being able to speak English very well," Jekiri recalled. "So I just sat there by myself. But when he came up to me and said, 'We want to sit with you and get to know you' it was special to me. He had his friends with him, and he could have just stayed with them. But he made that effort, and it's gone on that way until it got to the point where his family got involved. I've been blessed to have all of them in my life."