Elgin Academy students find ways to help needy

Elgin Academy students are learning firsthand fighting poverty is a daunting task.

Teams of more than 100 fifth- through eighth-graders have been working this month on a service project exploring ways to fight poverty in the Elgin community. They met with representatives from community groups such as PADS, Food for Greater Elgin, Ecker Center for Mental Health, Elgin Community Crisis Center, Boys & Girls Club of Elgin, Wayside Cross Ministries, and Centro de Información to learn about the causes of poverty and research ways to alleviate it.

As part of the exercise students solicited local businesses seeking donations for care packages, but mostly they weren't taken seriously, said sixth-grader Sameer Rauf, 12.

"It was kind of discouraging but we went forward with it because there's always other ways to overcome an obstacle," he said.

Many big-box stores they approached weren't too receptive, but a few helped.

"Walgreens gave us a lot of small toiletries, toothpastes," said eighth-grader Aaron Kirk, 14. "A lot of the smaller businesses (and) stores were more helpful. We have called different places for donations of toiletries, shampoos, towels and blankets. We will put together a care package and give that to the Ecker Center to give to people in need."

Teams of students will be volunteering 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday distributing food at Food for Greater Elgin's pantry and passing out ice cream and supplies from noon to 3 p.m. at the Ecker Center.

Students will present a Solutions Symposium 9 to 10 a.m. Tuesday in the Sears Gallery Theatre on Elgin Academy's campus and unveil plans to support various agencies helping the poor. The event is not open to the public, though some elected officials and representatives of those seven agencies will be in attendance.

"We have invited the mayor and various council members to attend, and opened this up to the Elgin Academy community," said Janet Hughes, middle school English language arts teacher. "We've had a great turnout of parental support and community members (for previous projects)."

Hughes said students will make multimedia presentations, sell items and accept monetary donations for their adopted agencies. Collection boxes are set up around campus where anyone can donate canned goods and other food items the remainder of the school year, she added.

"They are learning problem-solving and definitely growing through this," Hughes said. "They are seeing it is not easy to reach out to people. A lot of them were frustrated with a lot of the phone calls, even emails that weren't returned. They have learned to figure a way around it and still be quite positive."