When the ECIER students head off to Washington DC on January 16, they’ll be doing it in style.
The 12 Northwest Indiana students selected to join the 900 other students from across the country for a weeklong government studies program in the nation’s capital all received black blazers and giant white winter coats emblazoned with the ECIER logo on them as parting gifts. The coats were given in the event the students were attending the Presidential Inauguration January 20, but they won’t get to go, ECIER Founder Chareice White said.
“That was disappointing, but they’re still going to get the chance to see government in action,” White said during a send-off celebration for the kids and their families at Innsbrook Country Club in Merrillville Saturday afternoon. “We partnered with the Close Up Foundation (an Arlington, Virginia-based not-for-profit that teaches students about the federal government), and they’ll spend a week taking classes and seeing the monuments. It’s great for them.”
The students won their spots on the trip through a contest last fall in which they had to develop their own political campaigns for the group’s youth council. Kennedi Edgington, a Senior at Bishop Noll in Hammond, won the group’s Treasurer spot.
“I ran for Treasurer because I’ve been Treasurer for (Noll’s) Black Student Union and Band Club’s, and I’m smart with money,” she said. “I’ve been to DC before in fifth grade, but I have a new appreciation for it now because I appreciate the process of how people decide to run for things.”
The trip won’t be all work and no play, Master of Ceremonies Dwayne Walker said. Along with visiting the Capitol building, Pentagon, Martin Luther King Memorial and the African American Museum, the students will attend Close Up’s inaugural ball. They will also participate in mock debates and workshops.
“This trip is a lesson in civics, governance and civility. The exposure they’re going to get, I’m probably more excited than they are,” he said.
Several community leaders were on hand to wish the students well, including State Senator Mark Spencer, D-Gary, and State Representative Vernon Smith, D-Gary. Smith told the group how glad he is that they’re getting this chance.
“As a kid growing up in poverty, I never had a chance like this growing up, so this shows what ought to be done and makes us think about our paths,” Smith said. “I’ve been to five continents and 30 countries, and I can tell you, there’s no better country than the United States; we’re the youngest country in the world, and yet we have a stake in everything.”
The 12 students who’re heading to DC are the following: Braylen Chafen, of East Chicago Central; Curtis Dickerson, of William Fegley Middle School in Portage; Adam Coleman, of Hammond Academy of Science and Technology; Muniz; Edgington; Paige Boland and Korryne Fowler, of Lake Central; Ivan Lyons, of Gary Lighthouse Charter School; Autumn Staples, of Hammond Morton High School; and Marianna Owens, Quentin King and Julius Jones, of West Side Academy in Gary.
ECIER Foundation is a not-for-profit created “to educate, empower and equip our youth to realize their potential and achieve their dreams through innovation and entrepreneurship,” according to its mission statement, and is open to all students, White said. Anyone interested in donating to ECIER to further defray the trip’s cost or contribute to their scholarship may go to ECIER.org.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
