Top Good Citizen Award winner: 'I just turn my complaints into action'
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URBANA — If there's one thing Eve Foley is hoping for as she looks forward to graduation and leaving for college, it's that she will have left an impact on Urbana High School.
As both class president and student council president, Foley has been trying to change her school for the better, but she has been doing that long before she took those offices.
"I just turn my complaints into action," she said. "Because if I'm complaining about something, then obviously there's something that can be done. ... If I'm complaining about something, then other people definitely are, too."
She sees all of this as an intrinsic urge and not something she does for recognition, but Foley was flattered to receive a 2024 Good Citizen Award from the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Sons of the American Revolution.
Out of all of the Champaign-Urbana honorees, Foley was the top scholarship winner, so she is now being judged at the state level with a $5,000 scholarship on the line.
"I guess I'm a good citizen, but I think there are also a lot of other people that are really great citizens," she said.
Foley's first "real" year of high school was her sophomore year, finally back in person after pandemic-related school closures, but she still found herself looking back on her middle school experience with a lot of negativity.
"I didn't have any closure, almost, on my middle school experience, which is like a weird thing to say, but it was really bad," Foley said. "I was like, 'What can I do? I need to do something.'"
She came up with the idea of having high-schoolers mentor and tutor middle school students ... so she started doing it.
Foley recruited friends and friends of friends and worked with the school district to visit Urbana Middle School as tutors.
The program had to take a pause last year as violence at UHS had administrators concerned, but this year, Foley once again approached the district and was able to create a more official version.
Now, any high school students with good enough grades to qualify can tutor.
They wear identifying badges while at the middle school and track all of their work and progress in a more organized way.
"I was really worried that when I'm leaving, it was going to kind of fall apart," Foley said.
But since it belongs more to the school district, with USD 116 District Mentoring and Community Involvement Coordinator Angie Armstrong overseeing the program, it has more staying power.
"I was so ecstatic, like I was telling Angie, 'I'm so grateful that I don't have to worry about this program collapsing after I leave because it's your thing now,'" Foley said. "It just makes me so happy because I really love Urbana, and I don't want all my work to be for nothing."
Foley has spent a lot of time over the past year working with school and district administration.
In her presidential roles, she meets with UHS Principal Jesse Guzman at least monthly to discuss various school issues, and she has been a big fan of his impact on the school.
"Last year, obviously there was a horrific amount of violence at our school. ... The entire environment of the school was really tense, and there was very little respect between both administration and students," Foley said. "I know student council really respects our admin this year, because they've extended themselves to us, and I know they respect us, and we more work together rather than against each other."
Last semester, student council represented the UHS student body in asking administration to stop implementation of a Standards Referenced Learning grading system that students were struggling with.
They've also worked to set up fun programs like spirit weeks and found ways to encourage more students to show up at sports games in coming years.
"It doesn't feel like people are against each other or the adults and students are so divided," Foley said.
Foley is also a student ambassador for the Parent Teacher Student Association and the League of Women Voters of Champaign County, a member of the Civic Engagement Club, a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, a tennis player, an a cappella singer and an actress both on stage and in short films.
She's also preparing to move all the way to Maine to attend Bowdoin College, where she's thinking she'll start on a pre-law track or maybe study theater.
"When you're doing work that you really care about or really enjoy, it almost doesn't feel like work. Most of what I do is like that, because I really love all the people that I do this stuff with and all the connections I've made," Foley said.
