The Oak Park and River Forest High School cafeteria was abuzz with potential last Thursday.
Hundreds of juniors and seniors made their way around 29 tables representing local nonprofits at the Civics Service Learning Fair. For these youngsters, the tables and the people that manned them represented not just a way to fulfill their mandated five service hours for their Civics course, but a way to give back to their community.
“I see tons of opportunities,” said OPRF junior Mia Mahoney, a volleyball player making her way through the cafeteria and its service fair tables with junior teammate Lily Kinzler.
“Definitely a lot of things I want to get involved in, especially in education,” said Mahoney, who wants to go into teaching eventually, possibly psychology. “I definitely want to learn about children and their mental health and stability.”
If you need further insight about how serious she is about her career path, consider this:
“I’m doing my project for service learning on education expenses, so I’m trying to see the relationship between mental health and college expenses and the toll it takes on students,” she said.
Kinzler loves working with kids and wants to be a pediatrician someday, and so there were no shortage of opportunities to contribute to her five hours, like Oak Park Education Foundation and the Collaboration for Early Childhood.
The Civics Service Learning Fair is offered twice yearly for the over 400 students enrolled in Civics each semester. Thursday’s event featured nonprofits at tables in five categories, including childhood education, supporting those with disabilities, political and civic engagement, community and youth engagement, and housing and food insecurity.
Nearby, OPRF junior football player Liam Brown said he was using Thursday as a basis for setting a monthly routine to contribute service hours. Which organization appealed to him?
“I like Beyond Hunger a lot, because I’ve worked with Feed My Starving Children and it seems kind of up that alley,” Brown said. “That’s also the kind of topic I’m doing for my project in Civics class.”
Teri Miller, Beyond Hunger director of development, appreciated the interest shown by dozens of students like Miller.
“What I love about these kinds of opportunities is for kids to learn to be of service for the community,” Miller said, amongst a gaggle of youngsters looking to learn more. “For us, we have lots and lots of volunteer shifts and I think volunteering in a food pantry is a great way for kids to learn more to donate their time.”
Senior Akuba Sarpey is also interested in Beyond Hunger, and also Tutorastic. But there is a higher-level issue she saw from her classmates.
“I really like how I have made a connection with those who are influencing our community,” she said. “I like how they know we are interested in what they are doing and also make an impact with them.”
Superintendent Greg Johnson stood among the students with a smile, realizing that the fusion between OPRF and the community is strong and will only get stronger with the time students will donate.
“It’s great to see all the kids engaging as clearly as they are,” Johnson said. “Before the kids came in, I was going around the members from those organizations were telling me how fabulous the kids were. No phones were out, they are taking notes, they are asking serious questions, which is wonderful.”
The Civics Service Learning Fair also included a panel discussion in the Little Theater with Cook County assessor Fritz Kaegi, state Sen. Don Harmon, and state Reps. Camille Lilly and LaShawn Ford.
Want proof that what they were saying had an impact?
It took a reporter the better part of a half-hour to reach Lilly after she spoke with dozens of students after the second panel discussion.
“Their questions were very thoughtful,” said Lilly, an OPRF graduate herself. “They asked us how we are engaged in making sure they are included. They really want to know about us, and I thought that was very, very important.”
Bottom line: it was an enjoyable experience for her and the panelists.
“This is the third time I’m doing it, and I come every time, probably because I’m a Huskie,” she said. “What I liked was the young people were attentive to listening to our answers. They were intentionally listening to everything we were saying.
“I was very impressed with that.”