St. Isidore Leadership Academy Students Use Skills to Serve the Elderly

Middle school students from the St. Isidore Leadership Academy organized a school and parish-wide craft drive this spring that collected over 500 craft supplies to help the elderly residents and patients of Lexington Health Network.

Eighth graders Jenna Jamieson, Donovan Maloney, Isabella Sansone, Brendan Dunbar and Olivia Dorman, and seventh graders Marissa Testolin, Jenny Hauser, Zach Barry and Henry Breyne were asked to create, develop, and implement a project that demonstrated leadership in their community. The students selected Lexington Health Care after being moved by the needs of the elderly from some of their previous site visits. Students from the Leadership Academy personally delivered the crafts to the Lexington facility in Bloomingdale in late May.

“We felt like the elderly can use different experiences that are stimulating and engaging, and doing crafts is one way that their social and motor skills can be maintained and exercised,” explains Leadership Academy member Jenny Hauser. “Plus, making crafts is a lot of fun. This experience with Leadership Academy has better prepared us to assess needs in a community and actually do something about it.”

The Leadership Academy is open to seventh and eighth grade students at St. Isidore who demonstrate leadership skills in their school. Students are required to fill out and submit an application with teacher reference in order to be considered. . Students spend the first half of the school year learning about leadership. The second half of the year is dedicated to project creation and implementation.

“This is the second year the Leadership Academy has been implemented at St. Isidore. It is such a blessing to see the impact it has had on the St. Isidore Community and clients at Lexington Health Network. These students are very impressive in their character and work ethic,” says Cyndi Collins, Principal at St. Isidore School.

The Leadership Academy is overseen by Trevor Simpson, LCPC, and Samantha Hoover, MA, from Alexian Brothers Parish Services. Parish Services provides school counseling and social work services to parochial schools in the Chicagoland area, including St. Isidore School.

Lexington Health Network is Chicagoland's premier provider of post-acute care & rehabilitation, long-term care, memory care, independent & assisted living, home health care, hospice care and private duty nursing.

Today, Lexington Health Network manages more than 2,000 skilled nursing beds in 10 different post hospital, nursing and long term care buildings as well as more than 500 independent retirement units and more than 150 assisted living units within 3 senior living centers, including a facility in Bloomingdale at 165 S. Bloomingdale Rd.

St. Isidore School, located at 431 W. Army Trail Rd in Bloomingdale, IL, is part of the Joliet Diocese and has been in existence since 1920. It has 309 students pre-school through eighth grade and a staff of 30 teachers, aides and administrators, more than 70% of which hold masters degrees or above. “Teaching the Heart of the Matter” is the school's mantra, and part of its mission to “… plant, cultivate, grow and share with children, the Kingdom of God …”