St. Viator grad's Harvard program teaches Prospect junior leadership skills

The worlds of two Northwest suburban young people collided last spring at a global health initiative at Harvard University, and the result is the growing emergence of these two community leaders.

Paul Lewis of Hoffman Estates started Harvard College VISION, a global health initiative aimed at empowering young people to tackle global health disparities.

The St. Viator High School and Harvard graduate hosted his third Global Health and Leadership Conference last April. It pairs high school teens with Harvard students, and together they work to create projects around a global health issue that impacts their communities.

"The program hopes to help students make a difference," Lewis says, "and grow as civically minded leaders for the future."

Mary Catherine Hanafee LaPlante of Mount Prospect, now a junior at Prospect High School, was one of those teens.

"Paul was absolutely incredible, and the conference helped launch my leadership journey," Hanafee LaPlante says. "It introduced me to incredible students from across the country, and it was an amazing opportunity to learn from health and leadership professionals."

Just last month, Hanafee LaPlante learned she's heading to another conference this spring. She was among 100 students from across the country selected to participate in the 2020 Disney Dreamers Academy with Steve Harvey and ESSENCE Magazine.

The four-day experience takes them behind the scenes of the Disney theme parks, as the 40-square-mile vacation destination becomes a classroom where students participate in workshops to discover new career opportunities.

In Hanafee LaPlante's case, she hopes to learn more about environmental issues, with the goal of becoming an environmental scientist or public policy consultant on climate, especially after working with Lewis and the global health professionals at Harvard.

At that conference, she was paired with girls from Japan, Michigan and Massachusetts in a case study competition. Months before they arrived, they started researching and writing their case study on the influence of counselors in schools across the world. They presented their findings at the conference and won first place.

"We concluded that there is a vast disparity between counseling programs around the world," Hanafee LaPlante says. "In fact, there aren't any guidelines for the counselor to student ratio in public high schools, and many schools have too few counselors for the number of students they are serving."

Hanafee LaPlante now leads a chapter of the Harvard College VISION back at Prospect, where she works to teach leadership through service. She also is continuing her research by evaluating the effectiveness of one-on-one meetings between freshmen and their counselors, with support from the president of the Illinois School Counselor Association.

But that's just the start of her involvement. She is a core team member of Illinois Youth Climate Strike, which organizes marches in Chicago, while serving as an advisory council member of She Votes IL, a nonprofit organization that elevates women's voices in policymaking and government.

She also received a grant to start her organization Speak Up Green Up, which works with Prospect and the Mount Prospect Park District to ban harmful pesticides and herbicides in grassy areas.

Back at Prospect, Hanafee LaPlante captains the Science Olympiad team and is part of the school's tutor leadership team. All this, and she plays softball and travel lacrosse.

Her counselor at Prospect, Lauren Collins, says Hanafee LaPlante is a well-respected leader within the school.

"She has proven herself to be one of Prospect's best and brightest student leaders," Collins says. "The one area where she truly shines is her activism and creativity working with nonprofit agencies to serve underrepresented populations. She is personable, responsible and a dedicated leader in our school and community."