Xavier McGarrity joined Start Strong Bronx because he is interested in understanding and sharing with his peers what a healthy relationship is and how to stop a teen from being abused. He was bullied in middle school and understands what it feels like to not be treated with respect. When his peers told him that he might not achieve his dream, he continued to pursue his passion, art.  “Every day, I’d practice art, and it pushed me to go further to prove to them I could make it."

Now a senior at the Bronx High School for the Visual Arts, Xavier is a member of the Peer Mediation Program helping classmates resolve confrontations that arise in school and home life.  The program helped him look at situations more completely so that he can “help both sides compromise and realize what mistakes they’ve made. When I mediate, I have to put my sense of humor to the side to stay positive and humble or the person will think I really can’t understand them.”

He thinks it’s important that the Chris Brown and Rihanna case showed how teenagers start off on good terms with their partners, but later go through different stages which sometimes result in one partner being abused.

Xavier is an excellent leader because at school and at home.  He has given back to his community over the years through the Boys & Girls Club of Long Island and the Glen Cove Youth Board of Long Island.  As co-leader of the Start Strong Bronx Teen Advisory Board, he applies his drawing talent to a comic book project to teach middle school students about healthy relationships. Xavier describes drawing as “everyday passion that I live and breathe since the age of five years old.   He plans to go to art school in San Francisco and become an animator.