Bugle Newspapers 9-15-22

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# Bugl e n e W s

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WIll counTy

Third annual suicide prevention Walk set for sept. 24 The third annual Plainfield Suicide Prevention Walk will be from 5-8 p.m. Saturday, September 24, 2022, at Plainfield High School-Central Campus at 24120 W. Fort Beggs Drive.

Participation is free and open to the community.

Attendees will walk the track for an hour in honor or in memory of some-

one touched by suicide.

The event aims to raise awareness of suicide, honor those who have died by suicide, and show support for those who may be considering suicide and need support.

The walk will feature a speaker from the Elyssa’s Mission organization which administers suicide pre-

vention programs in schools.

Attendees can sign a banner with their reason for walking, buy a bracelet with proceeds benefiting Elyssa’s Mission, or paint a rock with a meaningful word or phrase that holds a powerful impact.

Attendees can keep the rock or donate it to line the flower beds at

PHSCC. 2019 PHSCC graduate Kaden Dolbee created the walk in September 2019. PHSCC seniors Amelia Perona and Brynn Arnott are organizing this year’s event.

Both girls got involved in the event because they have been touched by suicide.

“I want to try to help as many people as I can,” Perona said.

Perona and Arnott will speak at the beginning of the walk.

“I am very passionate about mental health and suicide prevention,” Arnott said. “I knew this event was a great opportunity to use that passion to help others.”

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dupage counTy

dcM Wonder clubs extend through the school year DuPage Children’s Museum (DCM) worked in partnership with the Center for Success to deliver DCM Wonder Clubs, exceptional Arts and STEM programming designed to inspire students to wonder about the world around them and generate solutions to authentic problems.

The Center for Success empowers both pre-service college students in education and PK-12 students enrolled in high-need schools in Chicago and Aurora with experiential education that provides access, resources, and opportunities. This summer, the Center for Success hosted camp for their Junior/Senior Scholars at DCM. “DCM’s role in the scholars program illustrates how our museum is working proactively to build diverse and inclusive partnerships to ensure that fun, engaging, hands-on Arts and STEM learning experiences reach all children,” DCM CEO Andrea Wiles shared.

Providing access to extraordinary learning experiences is one strategy DCM employs to ensure that all children thrive through joyful play and learning.

The DCM Play and Learning Team delivered a variety of learning experiences. Scholars were able to invent and play their own board games, express their creativity by making clay sculptures, and experiment with some very messy slime, oobleck, and other chemical concoctions. Students were able to engage in problemsolving investigations, hands-on learning, and discovery. Additionally, students practiced important social-emotional learning skills as they shared their wonderings and collaborated together to explore different Arts and STEM concepts. In order to ensure this partnership created studentdriven and meaningful learning opportunities, DCM educators and Junior/Senior Scholar staff worked together during each session - making connections across the scholars’ camp experience while also having fun themselves as they played and learned right alongside the scholars.

“As it was our first time to be back in person with our scholars, it was important to me to have a strong launch with a rich immersion experience for each of my students whose learning was compromised during the Pandemic. I was hoping to inspire curiosity and imagination in our

scholars this summer and I found exactly that opportunity with DCM,” Jan Fitzsimmons, Founder, Center for Success, shared as she reflected on this partnership.

“The DCM staff really ‘WOWED’ my scholars, my staff, and me with their open and welcoming kindness each and every day. That ‘authentic welcoming’ created the foundation and all the right conditions for an invitation to learn. It is ideal for a partnership that is advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion in Arts and STEM, as well as a ‘college bound’ message to all!”

DCM’s Wow Factor will continue to inspire the Centers for Success partnership throughout the school year. DCM will be the host location for their afterschool program. Students in grades 4 through 12 will be able to continue their academic enrichment, mentoring and participation in additional DCM Wonder Club activities.

Museums are essential partners in a community’s learning ecosystem, perfectly and nimbly positioned to meet children and their families where they are, especially those in our most underserved and underrepresented communities. DuPage Children’s Museum is evolving in order to meet the moment of today, in becoming true partners for community change. Through DCM Wonder Clubs, the museum collaborates with partner organizations to provide the training and tools, including easy-toimplement lessons, to help each organization facilitate hands-on STEAM learning experiences for their school-aged children, PreK– Grade 5. Organizations can learn more about DCM Wonder Clubs at dupagechildrens.org/wonderclubs.

Everything the Museum does is framed through the lens of relationships, play, and joyful learning. Community support is crucial in DCM’s role as a change agent –– inspiring, engaging, and empowering youth with the skills and confidence to become the next generation of solution builders.

DCM Wonder Clubs are supported by The Robert R McCormick Foundation and Kinder Morgan Foundation. Learn more about DCM and please consider making a donation at dupagechildrens. org/give.

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STATE

gun rights group sues Highland park By peTeR HancocK

capITol neWs IllInoIs SPRINGFIELD – A gun rights group is challenging the city of Highland Park’s ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines like the ones used in a mass shooting there on July 4.

The National Association for Gun Rights, based in Loveland, Colorado, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal district court in Chicago at the same time it filed lawsuits challenging a similar ordinance in Naperville as well as state laws in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Hawaii.

The cases were filed in district courts that are part of five different federal appellate circuits. Illinois is part of the 7th Circuit. In a statement Thursday, the group said it is pushing for a national precedent to end all similar bans across the country.

In the lawsuits, the gun rights group rejects the use of the term “assault weapon,” calling it a “charged political term meant to stir the emotions of the public” and instead uses the term “banned firearm.”

The lawsuits allege that the bans violate the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. They cite recent U.S.

Supreme Court decisions, including a 2008 decision overturning Washington D.C.’s ban on handguns, a 2010 decision overturning similar handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, and a decision from June of this year overturning the state of New York’s law requiring people to show “proper cause” for obtaining a firearm license.

On July 4, Robert Crimo III, 21, allegedly took an assault-style weapon and three large-capacity magazines onto a rooftop in downtown Highland Park and fired into an Independence Day parade, killing seven people and wounding dozens of others. He is being held without bond on multiple counts of first-degree murder.

Prior to that shooting, Highland Park had an ordinance dating back to 2013 banning the sale or rental of assault weapons or “assault ammunition feeding devices,” definitions of which are spelled out in the law. The city of Naperville adopted a substantially similar ordinance in August, specifically in response to the mass shooting in Highland Park and an earlier shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Highland Park’s ordinance, however, was previously challenged in federal court, and in 2015 a three-judge panel

of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the ordinance.

In their opinion, the judges specifically cited the 2010 Supreme Court case from Washington, D.C., in which Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said the Second Amendment does not guarantee a right “to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,” and noted that the court cautioned against interpreting the decision too broadly.

“We remain confident that the assault weapon ban that the city of Highland Park adopted in 2013 is lawful and constitutional, and that the affirmation of constitutionality by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals remains controlling precedent in our jurisdiction,” the city’s attorney, Steven M. Elrod, said in an email statement.

A spokesperson for the city of Naperville did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since the Highland Park shooting, Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has called for both a state and national ban on assault weapons. A bill pending in the Illinois House by Rep. Maura Hirschauer, D-Batavia, that would impose a statewide ban has 56 cosponsors.

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