On Saturday, Oct.7, 2023, Prospect students, from roughly 18 clubs and activities, woke up bright and early to get to Prospect to start serving the community for Prospect Gives Back.
Prospect Gives Back is an event in which students from Prospect travel to different local establishments in Mount Prospect and Arlington Heights and perform tasks wherever they can to help their community.
This event is in its eighth year, after starting in 2016.
When Frank Mirandola took the role of Associate Principal for Activities and Operations in 2016, he saw one or two other high schools doing something similar to Prospect. He sat down with some of the “key players” at Prospect and started the event.
Mirandola enjoys Prospect Gives Back and highlighted why it means so much to him.
“It’s just something I really love to do,” Mirandola said. “Because we have such a strong community and I want [the community] to make sure they see the awesome things that Prospect students are doing on a regular basis in a very visible and concentrated way.”
It was clear to see all the students Saturday morning in their Prospect gear. Although it was cold, the energy was high. Mirandola talked about how Prospect Gives Back was the norm for Prospect, but for others in the community as well. It was something that they were not used to from high schoolers.
“High school students truly are selfless individuals that truly want to make the world a better place,” Mirandola said. “As opposed to these false stereotypes we often see of ‘they can’t get off their cell phone’ ‘they’re always doing things that focus on themselves’ but that’s not the norm. What we see today for Prospect Gives Back, that’s the no
rm and that should be celebrated.”
Prospect Gives back’s impact has continued to grow. Many organizations want the students from Prospect to come back and help each year. Prospect Gives Back is always the first Saturday in October and people organize stuff and events around that date knowing that Prospect students will be serving.
Mirandola feels inspired by the work Prospect students do everyday, such as Prospect senior Andrew Astorino, who participated in Prospect Gives Back as a part of Uknight for Minds, which is a mental health awareness club affiliated with Prospect.
Astorino’s job was scanning pictures from history onto the computer to digitize them forever and to store the data so they can look back at it. Astorino said they felt inspired by the work they were doing with learning about the history behind Mount Prospect.
“It feels very historical in some way,” Astorino said. “I just feel inspired about the history behind Prospect and our city. I generally feel happy that I’m helping.”
Something Astorino takes pride in about Prospect is that we are always willing to help whether it is expected of us or not. Astorino saw the importance of helping those that are older than them who maybe can’t use the technology younger people use.
Astorino really felt fulfilled at the event and hopes they can do more service to the community in the future.
“I feel this warm touch in my heart,” said Astorino. “I feel like I’ve done something that’s so easy, that everyone else could do. I feel blessed by it.”
Astorino and Uknight for Mind’s work was not taken for granted and really helped out the board members of the historical society, especially president Frank Corry and one of the vice presidents, Jean Murphy.
Murphy expressed her gratitude to the students who helped because as she described, their historical society had some projects that had kind of gotten pushed to the back since they didn’t have time to do them, so the students helping out was a weight lifted off their shoulders.
For Corry, the help was also much appreciated and he believes the strong community Mount Prospect has is nothing new.
“Mount Prospect is a nice place to live and raise families,” Corry said. “And that’s not a geographical incidence. It’s a nice place to live because people make it a nice place to live and giving back to the community is a major piece of that.
Murphy said she had never seen Prospect Gives Back going on but only heard about it, but after she saw the work done this year, she will look forward to it.
On the day of Prospect Gives Back, there were clubs, activities and sports participating at many different locations and one of them was the Lions Recreation Center in Mount Prospect.
The recreation center hosted a fall fest which Prospect girls volleyball helped at. Head volleyball Coach Michele Mueller said it was a really fun event and she loved getting to see the girls interact with the community and interact with the kids as well as get community support.
“It’s important for everyone to realize that as a community we are stronger,’’ Mueller said. “And that starts with service and people volunteering their time to make wonderful events happen that they probably experienced when they were kids and now they get to help and continue to build the community.”
