Campanelli School in Schaumburg hears from inspirational teen as students help homeless

Students at Campanelli Elementary School in Schaumburg Friday participated in a service project alongside the renowned 17-year-old philanthropist who began his efforts to help the homeless when he was barely their age.

Chicago teen Jahkil Jackson helped students create care packages and spoke to them about how he was spurred at the age of 5 to work with charities devoted to assisting unhoused individuals and created the not-for-profit Project I Am three years later.

Jackson urged the students to find their own power to enact positive change, telling them how he had been moved to action at a young age when first encountering the plight of area homeless.

Even while aspiring to a career as a professional basketball player, the Curie Metropolitan High School senior has also written a pair of bestselling motivational books, worked with LeBron James and Nike, been made into a Marvel comic book hero and won recognition by former President Barack Obama.

“That was probably one of the best days of my life,” he said of the latter honor, though it was his mention of James that received the most audible response from his young audience.

His child-oriented book “I Am” is about his drawing on his own self-esteem to overcome the harassment of bullies when he was in seventh grade. After sharing some personal affirmations with the students like “I am brave,” “I am smart,” and “I am helpful,” he challenged them to come up with their own and explain to themselves why they’ve earned them.

His other book, “Don’t Wait to be Great,” encapsulates his broader message of telling kids they don’t have to be any more grown up than he was to bring change to the world.

Having started his public speaking on WGN News and ABC 7’s “Windy City Chicago,” Jackson has even taken his message internationally, either in-person or virtually.

That made the hourlong drive to Schaumburg and half day out of school seem relatively easy, he said. However, he’s already cutting back as he faces the question of how it’s all going to adapt to his approaching time in college.

His closest support, even organizationally, comes from his parents and grandmother.

The idea of inviting him to Campanelli came from PTA President Audra Siebert, who learned of Jackson from a video she saw while substitute teaching last February at Keller Junior High School that’s also in Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54.

“I was like, that is amazing!” Siebert said. “I personally felt it was important for our kids to experience giving back.”

Since the start of the school year, Campanelli students and staff have been collecting items for the donation of “blessings bags” of toiletries and other essentials for Project I Am’s distribution to the homeless. But because Jackson’s message is as much inspirational as for that cause, Siebert felt it was important for the students to hear from him directly.

The 560 bags the students assembled Friday morning were made up of a combination of items they’d collected themselves and those provided by Project I Am. But through the sale of T-shirts this fall, they also raised a monetary donation of $360 for the charity.

While half the bags went to Project I Am’s general distribution, the other half were kept locally for clients of the Palatine-based WINGS program sheltering women and children survivors of domestic violence.

Jackson told the students that while every encounter with a homeless person may not involve giving them something, it should always include imagining oneself in their shoes and interacting with them as one human being to another.

“Make sure you’re giving simple words of kindness, because it can go a really long way,” he said.

And whatever their own heartfelt causes may be, Jackson challenged the students to join him as representatives of a generation that cares.

“All of these things happened because of a choice I made, a decision to help others in need,” he said of his achievements. “I’m a proud member of Generation Z. I want to show a different side of kids.”