Whiz Kids: Camelot School Aids in Theater Restoration

Kara, Nikk, Lawrence and Chris

• Whiz Kids' Age: These four are all high school students.
• Whiz Kids' School: Camelot School
• Whiz Kids' Accomplishment: Every Friday this group heads over the the Des Plaines Theatre and helps out by cleaning, doing inventory and providing the muscle behind much heavy lifting. "They've been so helpful," Gay Meizen said, who is in charge of renovation development. "They inventoried and painted all of the Radio City Music Hall seats (there are more than 1,000), packed them up and moved them to storage and hauled boxes of film." The kids have also painted and regularly clean the theater. Camelot instructor Amber Koeneman said that sometimes as many as 20 students accompany her to help at the theater on Fridays.
• Whiz Kids' Key to Awesomeness: Koeneman and Meizen agree that the kids get a kick out of seeing the weekly progress that they have a hand in. "They like the history," Meizen said. "Also, we get to incorporate that history, with the history they are learning in school," said Koeneman. While it's fun for any kid to get out of school for a bit, they're still being put to work. We asked student Kara about how she feels about coming to the theater weekly. "It depends on what we're doing that day," Kara said, with a laugh. "If we're painting--cool. If we're doing heavy lifting, well, ahhh..." 

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