The past year has been a whirlwind for soon-to-be Riverside-Brookfield High School senior Aryan Hernandez.
Sure, he had plenty of schoolwork to do. He also performed in the fall play and spring musical, and was managing editor of The Clarion student newspaper, where he will be editor-in-chief in the fall.
But there was another side of Hernandez, which was recognized by the highest levels of the United States government with the Congressional Award Silver Medal, awarded in April.
Hernandez earned the distinction by committing to 200 hours of public service, 100 hours of personal development, another 100 hours of physical fitness and three days of exploring a new environment or culture.
So, yes, he was crazy busy for almost his entire junior year. But to hear him tell it, the effort was worth it, especially with college applications looming.
“It was a sense of pride that it all paid out in the end,” he said. “Not just the award, [but] how much I was able to give back to my community and effectively make a change in the world.”
Two of his biggest community service commitments included helping at the Share Food Share Love food pantry, distributing food and communicating with Spanish-speaking clients. He also tutored a seventh-grade student in math in a program called Learn To Be … via Zoom, because the youngster lives in California and is involved in the motion picture industry.
“I still volunteer to this day,” Hernandez said of his work at Share Food Share Love. “It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It was demystifying about food and security.”
Hernandez is half-Indian on his mother’s side, and is tri-lingual: Gujarati, English and Spanish, which he has taken since sixth grade. At the food pantry, he focused on helping Spanish-speaking clients, which allowed him to practice that language in a real-world context.
“A lot were immigrants who came to the United States, and seeing all these amazing people who work so hard restored my faith in community,” he said.
As for his tutoring work via Zoom, the young man in California is home-schooled and was a background actor in the movie “Barbie” and the TV sitcom “Abbott Elementary.”
“He’s grown so much, I’m so proud of him,” Hernandez said. “I’m kind of his teacher almost. They have their home-schooling math program, so I focus on that.”
That’s not nearly all Hernandez did to earn his medal, which is currently being produced by the U.S. Mint. He volunteered at UChicago Medicine AdventHealth La Grange hospital, where he completed many tasks, including restocking supplies, answering phones and assisting visitors.
And learning. Hernandez is planning on going into dentistry after high school and would like to open his own practice, so the experiences were tangential.
“I was able to see the inner workings of a hospital and see what the patients and doctors are going through … EMTs running in and out, food suppliers, all these cogs in a big machine,” he said.
Jim Franko, a school counselor at R-B, was Hernandez’s advisor in his project. Earning the medal just made sense, he said.
“He drove the whole process,” Franko said. “He did all of the legwork, he knew all the details and (had it) all laid out. So for me, it was talking him through it a little bit from my perspective.”
Make no mistake, though. None of this was easy. In addition to everything he did, Hernandez focused on weight training at home for the physical fitness aspect of the program. For cultural exploration, he decided to research Spain, partly because he hopes to study abroad there while in college. He focused on museums, artwork, architecture, cathedrals, landmarks and food, among others.
The keyword was balance.
“I had to sometimes step back,” he said. “It was a lot of pushing myself and making sacrifices, but in the end it all paid off.”
Hernandez will be busy once again as a senior. In addition to being the editor of The Clarion, he’ll be a student advisor to the Board of Education with another student. Plus, he’ll be applying to colleges, which is a process unto itself.
Franko said the future is bright for Hernandez.
“He’s one of those students where it doesn’t seem like a burden,” he said, “I sort of have this drive to be whatever the best version of myself is.”