Photo Courtesy of Michael Minor
Dwayne Ellmore, 17, of South Orange, second from left, was designated a June 2015 Student Villager of the Month at the Aug. 10 Board of Trustees meeting by Michael Minor, right, on behalf of the South Orange Community Relations Committee. Above are also proud parents Karen Deas and Steven Ellmore.
MAPLEWOOD/SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — South Orange and Maplewood are known for activism and their continuing work to promote equality. But that work is not only carried out by the adult residents. In fact, some of the most inspiring local activism has been by the two towns’ youth. On Aug. 10, at the South Orange Board of Trustees meeting, the village recognized South Orange residents Mia Goldstein, 17, and Dwayne Ellmore, 17, as the June 2015 Student Villagers of the Month.
The Villager of the Month designation is awarded to South Orange residents who make a difference in the community through volunteerism and advocacy. Recipients are considered the cream of the crop of South Orange.
And Goldstein and Ellmore, who both graduated from Columbia High School in June, certainly led their peers, taking volunteerism, advocacy, caring and involvement to a new level.
South Orange Community Relations Committee member Michael Minor presented the awards to Goldstein and Ellmore, thanking the two young people for their involvement in making South Orange-Maplewood a more equal and inviting place to live.
Minor had a lengthy list of Goldstein’s accomplishments that only served to highlight her worthiness for this designation.
“I’d like to recognize that you are an outstanding member of this community and you are, and will continue to be, an agent of change wherever you should find yourself going forward,” Minor said Aug. 10.
Among her many accomplishments, Goldstein created a documentary during her sophomore year at CHS that highlighted the how unclean the school was; rather than just write off the school as dirty, Goldstein created a video that alerted the district as to the lack of cleanliness in the school and now the school is cleaned much better. Her work won the CHS Best Documentary Award.
Goldstein said she felt she needed to create the documentary in order to bring to light the deplorable condition of the CHS bathrooms.
“I was inspired to make the documentary by the fact that going into those bathrooms once was so terrible that I never even wanted to go to the bathroom,” Goldstein told the News-Record during an Aug. 17 phone interview. She explained that she and many of her fellow students would just avoid the bathroom, rather than venture into the filthy facilities.
This is just one of many activities in which Goldstein participates to enlighten those around her. She is the outgoing director of a CHS Cable Network news program, was co-president of CHS’ Film Club and co-founded “Conversations at Columbia,” a series of forums in which students could address issues in the district and possible solutions to those problems.
Photo Courtesy of Michael Minor / Mia Goldstein, 17, of South Orange, second from left, was designated a June 2015 Student Villager of the Month at the Aug. 10 Board of Trustees meeting by Michael Minor, right, on behalf of the South Orange Community Relations Committee. Accompanying their daughter above are parents Allen Goldstein and Laura Griffin Goldstein.
Goldstein plans to double major in radio-television-film and in political science at the University of Texas at Austin, to where she traveled Aug. 17, for her freshman orientation shortly after talking to the News-Record.
Although Goldstein plans to pursue writing for television, she told the News-Record that she is still very interested in documentary filmmaking. If she were to have the means to produce high quality documentaries, Goldstein said she’d like to tackle social justice issues, racial inequalities within the United States and the failure of the U.S. education system.
Goldstein was also a member of the CHS varsity swim team for four years, is a lifeguard at the South Orange Community Pool, served as an umpire for boys’ baseball and volunteers to play music at JESPY House, a South Orange-based nonprofit that provides resources and support to adults with developmental disabilities.
But Goldstein’s greatest strength is her activism.
“Mia became an activist before she even knew or could define the word activist,” Minor said Aug. 10.
With Maplewood resident Sofia Petros, also a CHS senior at the time, Goldstein co-organized and led the peaceful protests at Columbia High School in the aftermath of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner incidents, two cases in which white police officers killed black men.
In November 2014, Goldstein and Petros organized a Columbia High School walkout in protest of the grand jury decision not to indict Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown. Then, in December 2014, Goldstein and Petros staged a “die-in” in response to a grand jury’s decision not to indict Staten Island police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the strangulation death of Eric Garner; for this protest, students lay quietly in CHS’ halls in solidarity with black men who have died recently at the hands of law enforcement.
Goldstein said Aug. 10 that she thinks organizing the protests are the real reason she was nominated for the Villager of the Month award.
“And I never thought I’d get an award for them — I only thought a detention, if anything,” Goldstein said Aug. 10. “I was shocked when Principal (Elizabeth) Aaron gave me a hug instead of a suspension. The fact that I marched a hundred students around the halls during third period without penalty is a testament to this community’s spirit of activism.”
As with Goldstein, Minor had many kind words to say of Dwayne Ellmore, who was born and raised in South Orange.
“It is time to honor your service, your achievements and your selfless commitment to others,” Minor told Ellmore Aug. 10, describing the young man as “an outstanding member of this community and an advocate for social justice.”
“You have earned the respect of students and adults alike, Dwayne, through your ability at such a young age to balance your time to serve those in your community, those in your school and those in your church, while also being active as both a scholar and an athlete,” Minor continued.
“This is certainly not something that I take lightly and I am very honored to be presented with this award,” Ellmore said Aug. 10.
Like Goldstein, Ellmore is committed to ensuring his peers have all the information they need. While at CHS, he produced the morning news program for the CHS Cable Network and he holds membership in the media ministry of his church, St. Matthews AME Church in Orange. Ellmore plans to study communications at Syracuse University in the fall.
In addition, Ellmore is member of his church’s Young People’s Division and has been a dedicated member of his church.
“He referred to you as a young man of deep faith and spirituality,” Minor said, echoing the words of Ellmore’s pastor, Bishop Reginald Jackson.
He was also a member of CHS’ varsity swim team and its junior varsity lacrosse team, serves as a lifeguard at the South Orange Community Pool and was a member of the National Society of High School Students.
Ellmore spends a great deal of time advocating for diversity and equality. He was very active in the Diversity Rocks club at CHS, which promoted diversity inside and outside school.
“Diversity Rocks is a group at CHS that is designed to celebrate the diversity at CHS, but also discuss the challenges that come with it,” Ellmore told the News-Record in an Aug. 16 email. “My participation in Diversity Rocks is the main way that I helped to improve the diversity and equality of the community.”
He was also a member of the CHS Minority Achievement Committee.
“Dwayne is an awesome student leader,” said MAC adviser Marcia Hicks in a statement read aloud by Minor on Aug. 10. “He has innovating ideas to help young African-American students succeed in school. He created and presented a workshop to uniors and sophomores on how to start out the year right. He also tutored other students in the MAC program. He attended the national leadership conference three times and was always a standout student at the conference.”
Ellmore also gives of himself at every opportunity, volunteering for a variety of causes, both through his church and on his own. He volunteers often at soup kitchens and participates in the “Building Homes for Heroes” program, which provides new housing for military veterans.
“I was inspired to involve myself in volunteerism as I began to see the positive impact that it has on others,” Ellmore told the News-Record. “Some of the organizations that I have volunteered for I started with because of help they requested — for example, volunteer tutoring. For other organizations, such as ‘Building Homes for Heroes,’ I got involved by at first shadowing my dad, and eventually stepping up to serve in any way that I can.”
“I hope to serve my town really well as I go off to college and in the future,” Ellmore said Aug. 10.
Both Goldstein and Ellmore felt privileged to be winning the Villager of the Month award alongside each other, as they have been friends throughout their time in the South Orange-Maplewood School District.
Ellmore joked at the award ceremony, that the two “have had a lot of exposure to each other,” mentioning their many overlapping extracurriculars. “Whenever Mia would put together one of her protests, I would always be one of the first people there. I didn’t care if it was 30 degrees outside — I was walking with her. I didn’t care if the floor of Columbia was dirty — I was laying on it.”
“It’s incredible to be here tonight, along with one of my very good friends, Dwayne. This is the greatest honor I’ve ever been given,” Goldstein said Aug. 10. “Dwayne, thank you for being the best person to share this award with. You’re a great person and your sense of humor got me through swim team and lifeguarding and chemistry.”
The two teenagers look to growing up in the South Orange-Maplewood community as a formative experience that is at least partially responsible for their activism, volunteerism and advocacy.
“I think South Orange-Maplewood is a very diverse community,” Goldstein told the News-Record. “It encourages diverse thinking and divergence from the norm. It encourages speaking out and making a difference. South Orange-Maplewood really shaped me.”
“Growing up in South Orange has exposed me to a variety of different people,” Ellmore told the News-Record. “It has caused me to be introduced to people who have inspired me to participate in community.”