Good News Sunday: Brave souls in Fox Lake take a dip to raise funds for Special Olympics

This is Good News Sunday, a compilation of some of the more upbeat and inspiring stories published recently by the Daily Herald:

About 100 people braved the icy waters of Nippersink Lake last Sunday during the Fox Lake Polar Plunge for Special Olympics.

The annual fundraiser, which traces its roots to 1999 in Lake Bluff, raises money to provide programing and events for more than 30,000 Special Olympics athletes in Illinois. Nearly $27 million has been raised by more than 87,000 plungers since then.

Jordan Feldman, Region B director of Special Olympics Illinois, said participants usually fall into two camps as to why they willingly leap into 34-degree water.

“Most of them just want to support a good cause, and for a lot of them this is something to check off their bucket list,” he said.

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Rishabh Wuppalapati, 18, of Vernon Hills, right, has been working with Stevenson sophomore Eshaam Bhattad, 16, of Buffalo Grove and students across the country trying to get bills passed to expand the teaching of history to include Indigenous and West African communities and “make sure that all groups have their stories told,” he said. – Courtesy of Rishabh Wuppalapati

Stevenson senior aims to ensure ‘all groups have their stories told’

Rishabh Wuppalapati, a senior at Stevenson High School, is the founder and director of the You Project, an organization dedicated to promoting geographic literacy and ethnic and cultural awareness.

Wuppalapati’s group has written several bills with the help of state legislators, introduced in the General Assembly, to expand the teaching of history to include Indigenous and West African communities and “make sure that all groups have their stories told,” he said.

Wuppalapati, 18, of Vernon Hills has been working with Stevenson sophomore Eshaam Bhattad, 16, of Buffalo Grove and students across the country — Washington, New York and New Jersey — trying to get similar bills passed in those states and on the federal level.

“In the wake of pushes against equitable access to historic education, Illinois has been a real pioneer in this (with) the passage of the TEAACH Act,” Wuppalapati said.

Illinois adopted the Teaching Equitable Asian American History Act in July 2021. The law took effect in elementary and high schools this academic year, making Illinois the first state in the nation to require public schools to teach Asian American history.

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Naperville North teacher Kevin Farrell, right, poses with members of the school’s science bowl team. From left, members include Claire Chen, Yikai Liu, Dingjia Shen, Andrew Tang and Jeffrey Tong. – Courtesy of Naperville School District 203

Naperville North science team advances to national competition

Whether it’s a question about biology, chemistry or physics, Naperville North High School’s science team is ready.

So ready that the Huskies recently won a regional competition to earn them an all-expense-paid trip to the National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C.

Coach Kevin Farrell, a science teacher at Naperville North, guided the group to its seventh straight state championship as the team rallied dramatically. After losing to Stevenson High School in the double-elimination competition, the Huskies came back to beat Fremd and then Stevenson two times.

The National Science Bowl, scheduled for April 27 to May 1, will host 64 middle and high school teams in Washington, D.C., for the first time since the pandemic began. The 2021 Naperville North team, which finished second in the nation during a virtual competition, also will be honored that week.

“It was huge,” Farrell said of the 2021 performance. “It was the first time that an Illinois team has ever finished in the top 10.”

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