Senior Ella Roth and junior Priyansha Shah received the Youth Impact Award at the St. Charles City Council meeting on Monday, April 17. The award celebrates students who have made large impacts on the community around them through volunteer work and participating in service projects. 

St. Charles’ Youth Commission Board, a group of St. Charles residents that meet monthly to discuss the welfare of youth and important issues regarding them, developed the Youth Impact Award recently to recognize the impacts on the community made by students. 

“It’s really a great honor because they only give out a few…And a lot of people in our community are doing great things, so to be able to get the award really says something about what they think of me and I’m really honored by that,” said Roth. 

Roth and Shah’s various contributions to the community were what ultimately led them to receive the Youth Impact Award. 

During the fall of 2022, Roth worked with St. Charles Mayor Lora Vitek and local government to change the light at the Randall road and Red Gate Road intersection to stop the numerous car crashes that occurred there in the past year.

“[The light] caused a disproportionate number of car crashes, especially for students on the way to school or home from school,” said Roth.

After starting a petition that quickly gained over 8,000 signatures, the light was changed. 

Similarly, Shah has been giving back to St. Charles communities by volunteering a couple hours a week, working with organizations like Fox Valley Food for Health to make and package meals for cancer patients. 

“For three hours every Tuesday I would go after school and we would make meals, and I typically made around 100 meals a day,” said Shah. “Over the three years I’ve had over 100 plus hours, so I’ve made over 100,000 meals with them.”

Shah is also a Youth Consultant on the Youth Commission Board, where she offers a student perspective on issues and ideas presented at their meetings. 

Both students are grateful for being considered for this award, and glad to see their hard work and dedication be recognized.

“It was just really nice because I feel like I definitely value a lot of the things that I do but I just didn’t realize other people had felt that impact too. So it was just nice knowing that I had an impact on my community,” said Shah.