The Suffolk Unit of the Boys and Girls Club of Southeast Virginia continues to set the standard for praiseworthy youth.

Niyasia Scott, a member of the club for the past five years, has been named its Youth of the Year, and she will now compete against others who’ve received similar honors from other units for the $2,500 scholarship that comes with being named the Youth of the Year for all of Southeast Virginia.

Scott, a junior at King’s Fork High School, has had an excellent role model for how to achieve the recognition, as the director of her club is LaMarr Coles III, who was named Youth of the Year for the Suffolk Unit in 2010.

“I have been able to see her growing up,” Coles said last week. “It’s always good to be able to give back to a place that has done a lot for you.”

As is often the case with youth who spend years participating in the Boys and Girls Clubs, Scott has found herself placed in leadership positions and becoming a mentor to younger children after having been mentored and nurtured by others there when she was younger.

“It gives me an opportunity to impact the kids,” Scott said recently of her work with the club. “Just seeing them come up and hug me and they’re really excited to see that I’m here — it’s rewarding, because I feel like they’re my little brothers and sisters.”

Scott is clearly making her director proud by following in his footsteps with the honor she has received, but their paths may diverge when she graduates from high school. Her plan is to head to the Art Institute to study fashion design and to obtain a degree in business management from Old Dominion University. The goal would be to open her own fashion design business one day.

But wherever her plans take her, we expect that Scott will be successful. She’s had a fine foundation laid at the Boys and Girls Club, and she knows she will always have supporters here in Suffolk.

Congratulations, Niyasia Scott.