With this year coming to a close, the last of the Communities Junior projects have wrapped up. Some of the last projects included Breakwater, BikeOsh, Oshkosh Community Bike Program, Best Friends Dog Park, and SMART Social.
Eleanor Baumgartner and Alexandra Pamenter teamed up with Breakwater (The Winnebago County Drug and Alcohol Coalition) to host a “Sober Night” on Tuesday, May 5th, at the Oshkosh Boys & Girls Club Teen Center. In collaboration with Breakwater team members Kaytlin Kuettner, Katie Jaegly, and Andy Scheu, as well as Teen Coordinator Alyssa Martinez, the event brought together 19 middle and high school students for an evening of positive peer connection, mentorship, and a diverse range of activities, including clay crafting, board games, and karaoke. The successful gathering highlighted the power of youth leadership in fostering a safe, supportive community environment, proving firsthand that making healthy, substance-free choices can be both fulfilling and fun.
Kuettner, from Breakwater, shared, “I would say, this event really showed the power of youth leadership and community partnership. Bringing middle and high school students together created opportunities for mentorship, positive peer connections, and opened conversations that support healthy choices.”
Communities celebrated another major milestone on Saturday, May 9th, with the successful hosting of its 10th Annual BikeOsh event. Led by student organizers Matty Sanneh and Virginia Arrington, the initiative drew over 100 community participants to promote local biking culture and showcase the city’s bicycle infrastructure. The duo collaborated with City Planners Brandon Nielsen and Emma Dziengeleski to coordinate 20 pit stops at local parks, which were enthusiastically staffed by more than 70 student volunteers who greeted riders and stamped their “pedal passes.” The event concluded with a grand celebration at the Leach Amphitheater, supported by volunteers from the Oshkosh Century group, and backed by 25 local businesses that donated raffle prizes. Deemed a resounding success by organizers and attendees alike, the collaborative effort perfectly highlighted the power of community support, leaving participants highly anticipating what next year’s event will bring.
Another junior project involved bikes as well. Caden Ames and Seamus Rutkowski wrapped up their weeks-long initiative with a massive bike distribution event for Read Elementary School students at the Algoma Boulevard United Methodist Church on May 13th. Thirty one local children rode away on freshly refurbished bicycles.
Ames and Rutkowski have been spending every Wednesday since April working alongside the Oshkosh Community Bike Program founder Steve Sagmeister and other volunteers to tune up and repair donated bikes.
The successful event marks another milestone for the local bike program, which has provided crucial transportation to over 4,000 residents since 2009. While this specific distribution event has concluded, the program’s mission to provide independent mobility to those in need continues; community members can still drop off both adult and kids bicycles of any condition at the Arts for Kids site on Pearl Street.
Ames explained, “I have enjoyed getting to learn how to work on bikes knowing that what I’m doing is going to make a difference.”
Moving away from bikes, the next junior project dealt with helping out our furry friends. Juniors Ella Seeley, Abby Dutscheck, Cooper Snell, and Phanique Thompson have completed a series of major upgrades to the Best Friends Dog Park, working alongside community partner Kyle Vergin from Winnebago County Parks and Expo. Throughout the project, the team met every Tuesday and Wednesday to map out the park, build new equipment, and plant trees to enhance the experience for both dogs and their owners. The upgrades—which include a brand-new picnic table and an A-frame dog obstacle course—were celebrated during a final unveiling event on May 14th.
Reflecting on the teamwork required to pull the project together, the group kept Vergin’s own favorite advice in mind: “Don’t sweat the small stuff, because in the end, it’s all small stuff.”
The dog park unveiling was a highly attended event, and people were quite excited to see the additions for their furry family members.
The last project takes a step back from nature, and deals with technology. In response to data revealing that 79% of local students engage in three or more hours of recreational screen time daily—a trend directly linked to rising adolescent anxiety, depression, and sleep deprivation—students in Communities have launched a powerful counteroffensive. Partnering with the Women’s Fund of the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation, the student-led “SMART Social” initiative developed a comprehensive digital wellness framework targeting five areas, including addictive behaviors and sleep hygiene.
As part of the initiative, student leaders Cam and Lily took the cause to local elementary schools, teaching younger peers about the dangers of misinformation, social comparison, and cyberbullying to prevent the crisis from worsening. This impactful community partnership took place on May 20, 2026, at the Oshkosh Convention Center, where the students presented their research at the annual Power of the Purse Luncheon, aiming to transform their peers from passive media consumers into mindful digital citizens.
The Communities program ended the year with a bang, wrapping up numerous projects that made a difference locally. Looking ahead, exciting new options are already in the works for next year’s students. One thing is for sure: whichever junior projects launch, our students will be working to better Oshkosh.
