Chicago alone receives approximately 2,000 refugees per year.

Now think about how many refugees are daily coming into America through other large metropolitan cities and regions.

While most of Chicago’s refugees are assimilated through refugee resettlement services, they face struggles that many Chicagoans take for granted. A few members of the Parker community worked throughout October to lessen these struggles some through a school supplies and winter clothing drive for local refugee organizations.

7th grade history teacher Anthony Shaker wanted to do a drive for local refugees for multiple reasons, one being to follow up on discussions of the Syrian refugee crisis in his classroom. One of the core parts of his curriculum is the Nobel Peace Prize Project, where every student picks a Nobel Peace Prize winner to research. The last part of the project is a fishbowl-style discussion in which students talk–as if they were their respective laureates–about current issues. In a fishbowl, a circle is made around a smaller group of students who begin the discussion, and throughout the activity, students in the outer circle rotate in by tapping out students that have talked.

“This is my sixth year at Parker, and my first year, the topic was the Syrian civil war that had just started, and then in my head I thought every year I would do a new crisis,” Shaker said.  “Almost every single year since, that crisis has been the one that I’ve done.”

Shaker felt passionate about starting a drive after watching a CNN video from last August of a young boy being rescued from an airstrike in Aleppo. “I was just so devastated because I have two kids, and they’re not much younger than this child,” Shaker said. “I thought, that could be my son… that’s when it got in my head… I feel like I need to do something with my students, with the school, on behalf of refugees.”

Shaker then decided to approach John Novick, Head of Intermediate and Middle Schools, about conducting a drive for refugees in Chicago. Coincidentally, fifth grade teacher Mike McPharlin went to Novick with the same idea in mind, and the three men, along with Siobhan Allen, Intermediate and Middle School Dean of Student Life, began to organize a school-wide drive.

McPharlin and Shaker contacted RefugeeOne and the Syrian Community Network, the former asking for winter clothing (coats, boots, hats, gloves, scarves, and blankets) and the latter asking for school supplies (pencils, pens, paper, folders, notebooks, markers, etc). They put out donation boxes in the middle and upper school locker areas, as well as other gathering spaces around school. The drive collected items from October 18 to the 28th, and Shaker brought the winter items to RefugeeOne along with a few seventh graders the following Monday. The last part of the study is a future MX in which local refugees will come to Parker and present to students in person.

The drive was only the second component of the larger study of refugees that Intermediate and Middle Schoolers participated in. Students first got the opportunity to watch clips on refugees, Novick said, and actively engage in educational activities. Then they reflected on the information they learned through guided discussions.

“I believe educating thoughtful citizens for positive engagement in a global community requires study, exploration, and recognizing the humanity in others,” Novick said. “Given that America’s school children are now the most heterogeneous, diverse population of school children in American history, this is for everyone.”

Reflecting on everything that was accomplished over the six weeks of the project, Shaker thought that this first refugee drive was a success. “I hear about refugees being demonized…,” he said.  “I don’t want my students to think of refugees in that way.”  When asked what he learned from the experience, he said, “That Parker is a place that says yes…This is a community that says yes, especially when it involves helping.”

Novick agreed, tipping his hat particularly to people like Shaker.  “Our Intermediate and Middle School faculty and staff did such an outstanding job,” he said.  “They helped our students see beyond the stereotypes and hate that are prevalent in news media and in our politics. I’m proud of them all.”