b'INTERVIEWER:Q: Youve done much work for the Boys and Girls Club of America. In fact, you\'re in their Hall of Fame. Tell us about your work with the Boys and Girls Cub.COPELAND: A: I wouldn\'t be a ballerina with American Ballet Theatre if it weren\'t for the Boys and Girls Club. I grew up in San Pedro, California, and I\'m one of six children. I grew up in a single-parent home and in an underprivileged community, really just struggling to get by. The Boys and Girls Club was always that constant place that was like a second home for me and my siblings that we could go to after school. I loved to play basketball. I loved to make weird things in the woodshop. I was really good at pool. I beat grown men all the time when I was like 7 years old.But my real claim to fame was ballet. When I was 13 years old, a local ballet teacher came into the Boys and Girls Club and was looking for diverse students to give scholarships to who wouldn\'t have had an opportunity to be exposed to classical ballet, and I happened to be one of those students, and it completely changed my life. I took my first ballet class on a basketball court in socks and shorts and a T-shirt, and my teacher looked at me and she said, "I think you\'re a prodigy," and she brought me into her ballet school on full scholarship. I\'m forever indebted and so grateful to the Boys and Girls Club.22 Langdale College of Business'