Highland Park Military Kids Honored
April is officially the Month of the Military Child. Kids Rank—a Highland Park-based organization developed specifically with military kids in mind—hosted its first annual Kids Rank Ball at the Waukegan Yacht Club from 5:00 to 9:00 PM on Saturday, April 16. All around, the event was centered around kid-friendly activities and designed in order to resemble the numerous military balls each branch of the armed services holds for its members and their significant others, respectively. The inaugural Kids Rank Ball, however, though certainly focusing on military kids, was also a wonderful event that provided an evening of dinner and dancing for the entire family, adults, and children (military or civilians).
The Kids Rank organization was started with the intent of trying to reach out to numerous military children in order to implement them with a sense of stability, a concept that is extremely important due to the notion that such a thing can be very illusive to a lot of military families. “Kids Rank really helps because it’s a group of kids who know what you’re going through,” said Nya, a freshman at Highland Park High School. “Having to change schools is really a pain. You’re grounded in one place. You already made your friends and are finally feeling comfortable. Right when that happens, you have to pick up a start all over again. Civilians don’t understand what that’s like.”
The organization tries very hard to instill this sense of stability through a variety of activities that include, but are not limited to, community service and interactive group learning experiences. Too, as a member of the Kids Rank Club, individual military kids will have the availability of services that can offer help with regard to smoother transitions into new schools or neighborhoods, instill a sense of pride in the jobs their parents have committed to doing for the benefit of the country, and create a safe support system.
Alongside the first annual Kids Rank Ball, the Kids Rank organization will use The Month of the Military Child to launch their yearlong multimedia campaign: “Unsung Heroes: Stories of Military Children,” which is designed to bring attention to this very much overlooked portion of the military population. “Our Unsung Heroes campaign shows there are many faces of the military child, those who move often and those that have never moved, some have one military parent and others have both parents serving,” noted Kelcey Liverpool. “There are children from all branches of service, active duty, retired, and reservist, each having their own experience that might not include a traditional deployment to a war zone but still have unbelievable challenges.”
As is always the case, keep checking back in here with us at Lexus of Highland Park for more information about what is going on in our wonderful community.
