COMMUNITY COLLABORATION

The organization: Chicago Public Schools is the third largest school district in the United States, serving 323,251 students. CPS Mary Gage Peterson Elementary celebrated it’s 100th anniversary in 2025. To involve students in the centennial celebration, a student club was sponsored by the North River Commission, an organization committed to enhancing the wellbeing of its diverse Chicago community through collaboration, engagement, and coalition building.

The change: As Peterson celebrated its centennial, students considered the changes the school has been through over 100 years, and the changes it may go through during the next 100. What can we find out and share about Peterson’s past and present? How and why has it changed? What has always been at the heart of this school community that we can carry forward into the next century?

The story: The student club was co-facilitated by a multimedia storyteller (me), a Peterson alum, and a professional archivist. Together we explored: What can archives tell us about the past? How can oral history tell another story? How can we combine multiple sources— documents, artifacts and interviews— to tell a fuller story? The club preserved selected artifacts from 100 years of Peterson archives, displaying them on a website, public library collection, and at a centennial event. Students interviewed alumni and current students to create a documentary video using archival sources and captured multimedia, shown at the centennial event.