Celebrating LT Seniors: La Grange Heroes

LA GRANGE, IL — When times are tough, heroes emerge. We all know someone who's making a difference right now as we live through unprecedented times. Here at Patch, we've launched an initiative to help recognize these everyday heroes.

Olivia Wirtz and her friend, Chris Vasti, are nominated as heroes. They are Lyons Township High School students who created an Instagram page for classmates to "celebrate college decisions and feel a sense of pride in their accomplishments." They were nominated by Wirtz's mother, Suzi Wirtz.

Where the nominees live:

La Grange

Name of the nominees:

Olivia Wirtz and Chris Vasti

What do the nominees do?

They are students.

Why do you believe the nominees should be recognized or honored?

Olivia Wirtz and Chris Vasti, Lyons Township High School. These two seniors created an Instagram page to give classmates a place to celebrate college decisions and feel a sense of pride in their accomplishments.

They are making a big difference for parents, families, students and their high school. @lthsseniors2020 now has over one-third of the senior class pictured. Chris says, “I was looking forward to May 1st, when seniors wear college shirts to school; I was devastated to find out that wouldn’t be a reality for us.” Olivia describes their situation as seniors, “In times like these, when no one knows what’s going on, it’s important that people do their part to help keep some sort of order when everything is chaos. With everyone doing their part, we can get through hard times and come out stronger.” She explains that she saw a few other high schools doing similar things, so she "decided to take action and make an account for LT where the seniors could submit their future plans. This account makes it special for the seniors to announce their future, whether it’s a university, community college or military plan. I think students really appreciate this account because it brings us together even though we can’t physically do that.”

Both students feel that "if you live by simple acts of kindness and try to be selfless, everything can change. It’s like the snowball effect. If you do something nice for someone, they pass it on and soon enough everyone around you is better off.”

What’s one thing you want everyone to know about your heroes?

They wanted to do something to help classmates feel better and acted on their good intention.