Oak Park and River Forest High School hosted their second Civics Service Learning Fair in February to not only help students meet their graduation requirements, but also to cultivate a culture of civic leadership and community service.
Local nonprofits and civic organizations attended the event to personally meet students and pique their interest to be involved with their organization.
This was the second event held to help students meet their community service requirement, which became a state graduation requirement in 2017.
The first Civic Service Learning Fair was held in August.
The idea is that by bringing local organizations into the halls of OPRF to mingle with junior and seniors, they will be able to learn more about local nonprofits and civic organizations to potentially find one to volunteer with, completing their required five hours of community service.
“The service should be meaningful,” said Steve Schwartz, history teacher at OPRF. “Not something you just check the box off. The whole idea is that we want to connect our students to our community.”
Schwartz said there were about 30 organizations represented at the fair.
Maia Stern, owner of Stern Glass Works on South Oak Park Avenue, hopes to have OPRF students volunteer with their organization.
While Stern Glass Works is a for-profit organization, they host four events throughout the year to benefit local nonprofits.
“With those events, they are a big part of our studio,” Stern said. “We are still very small, but we try to do quite a lot of events throughout the year for us that are fairly big, so it takes a number of months of planning and preparation. The day off, there are a lot of moving parts.”
Stern said on average each event raises about $700-$800 for nonprofits while also giving local artists opportunities to make money.
The events take a lot of manpower, said Stern.
“It’s wonderful, as a community event, especially because these students are looking for volunteer opportunities, to collaborate and find ways that they are not only helping my studio, but they are also giving back to the benefiting nonprofit.”
One student who approached Stern’s table was Bailey Mosbacher, a junior at OPRF.
Bailey, who still hasn’t completed her service hours, said she appreciated the Civics Fair.
“I think it’s important to widen people’s views on possible opportunities in the community to help others,” she said. “Also, at a young age, it helps integrate teenagers into the world of helping people.”
Bailey said she is looking for a volunteering position where she can work with children or the elderly but is open to serving with other organizations.
Matt Maloney, instructional coach for climate and culture and history teacher at OPRF, said that even as a long-time resident of River Forest and Oak Park, he wasn’t aware of all the different local opportunities to provide volunteering and civic engagement.
“We need to find ways to connect our organizations and our students,” Maloney said. “We need to use this to plant seeds to go beyond civics learning requirements, to let this turn into a passion project for them.”
Maloney said he hopes students will see themselves, “their values, their interests,” in these organizations and go beyond the five-hour requirement.
Trying to get students passionate about being engaged citizens, said Maloney, adding that there is great power in numbers.
“It is a way for them to actually do civics, not just sit in the classroom and listen about what it is,” Maloney said.
OPRF solicited feedback from students following the first fair in August and according to Maloney, more than 90% of civic students said it was a meaningful experience.
While this semester has less students enrolled in a civics class, about 250 students, Maloney said he hopes this semester’s class will also benefit from the fair.
Styles 4 Kidz was another nonprofit organization present at the fair.
“It’s important because hair is important,” said Tamekia Swint, founder of Styles 4 Kidz. “Parents who are of one race taking care of a child of a different race may not understand all the details that goes into taking care of their hair. We are here to help parents navigate that and help kids understand their own hair.”
With Styles 4 Kidz, volunteers can help with workshops or work in a salon.
Part of the Civics Fair also includes a panel discussion with invited guests.
This year OPRF invited speakers for two different panels, one during second period and one during third period.
This semester, panelists included Ravi Parakkat of Takeout 25; Cate Readling, community activist; State Rep. Camille Lilly; and Kina Collins, candidate for Illinois’ 7th Congressional District.
The panelists shared their stories and experiences about how and why they became involved in their communities and why they continue to serve in various capacities.
For Readling, she recalled getting involved after the Boy Scouts of America announced that they were going to maintain a policy to ban gay scouts and leaders.
“I wasn’t okay with that, and I didn’t really know what I was going to do about it,” Readling said.
Readling, along with Mary Anderson, brought Scouts for Equality, a national organization formed against the Boy Scouts of America’s policy, to Oak Park through the Oak Park Scouts for Equality.
Through their stories, the panelists shared the same goal: to encourage students to be an active part of their community, in whatever way is the most fitting for them.
“You see leaders and people in the community connect with the school and give students a perspective and allow people to engage,” Schwartz said. “OPRF is the center of the community and I think we, as an institution, can leverage that, and just provide more community engagement on behalf of our students.”
