NORTHAMPTON — When Elena Frogameni walks down the halls of Northampton High School, she’s continually stopped by her peers who just want to chat.
Frogameni doesn’t mind. She greets everyone with a smile. She believes this creates a sense of community that has the ability to create positive change.
As senior news producer and co-founder of “The Transcript,” a weekly news broadcast at Northampton High, Frogameni, 18, uses her platform to tell stories that would normally fly under the radar but connect students with one another.
Students get to learn about their peers, whether it be a fellow student shining in the school’s art program or on the field with its sports teams, she said.
“I feel like it creates so much more of a communal attitude in the high school,” Frogameni said. “This aspect of community can be really powerful.”
Her dedication to her community, both at school and in her city, has made her the winner of the second annual Daily Hampshire Gazette’s Young Community Leader Award. The award honors a Hampshire County resident between the ages of 15 and 30 who has “contributed through community involvement and volunteerism to making our county a better place for all.”
Nominations were reviewed by a committee representing the Gazette, its partner, the United Way of Hampshire County, and other community members. The first winner was Allison Jenkins of Hadley last year.
With the award, Frogameni will receive a prize of $250, half of which will go to a charity of her choice, although she has not yet decided which one.
A graduating senior, Frogameni’s list of activities and achievements at Northampton High School is impressive.
Frogameni and her team at The Transcript were nominated for three Student Emmys in their first year. A documentary she produced about net neutrality in late 2017 won her an honorable mention in a C-SPAN contest.
An accomplishment she’s most proud of is teaching her peers about media production and community building at The Transcript.
“We have a group of reporters and videographers that get paired up each week and it’s really about learning how to work as a team and learning from each other,” Frogameni said. “Being able to have that shared knowledge and to learn together is such an important learning experience.”
Along with her duties at the news organization, Frogameni made waves in her high school by reorganizing the student government to be more representative. A new constitution, written by Frogameni in her sophomore year, created a 16-member council known as the Student Union.
Each class elects four representatives to the union and the whole school elects a student representative to the Northampton School Committee, a position that Frogameni holds. A separate class officer system deals with organizing the prom and senior events.
“We have open meetings twice a month, and that body is working to create positive institutional change at the school,” Frogameni said. “Having this codified, legitimate body means that any student can come and talk to us, any student can come to our open meetings.”
Frogameni hopes to see the systems she has created in the high school last long after she is gone. She said that the work she has done has helped to create a culture of transparency and solidarity between every student at the school.
“I have put so much time and effort into building these things and promoting student voice,” Frogameni said. “But the reality is that in two months, I’m done. But these organizations are still going to be here, so right now it’s not necessarily about me and my role in them but making sure they are going to live on … these things are really important to me and they have become important to our school district.”
Frogameni’s community involvement goes beyond the high school. She founded the Young Democrats club at Northampton High with other student organizers after the 2016 election and recently helped organize students to take part in the March for Our Lives demonstration against gun violence in Northampton March 24.
“This is something that I know I will continue to work on, to fight for and to advocate for, but it was also an amazing opportunity to see new student organizers who are fighting for this,” Frogameni said.
Those around her have observed that quality in her. Jeromie Whalen, technology teacher at Northampton High School and senior class adviser, nominated Frogameni for the award citing her drive and passion for the work she does.
“She really just encapsulates everything that inspires me as a teacher,” Whalen said. “It takes the leadership of the students to really guide where they want to go. We wouldn’t have the tech department as we do right now without Elena.”
Frogameni said that she plans to continue her education after graduating, but hasn’t selected which college or university she will to attend in the fall.
Tickets for the Gazette’s Person of the Year and Young Community Leader event, at which time the award winners will be honored at a reception, are $28 per person and can be purchased at https://gazettepersonoftheyear.eventbrite.com. The event will be held April 25 at the Hadley Farms Meeting House at 41 Russell St. in Hadley from 5 to 7 p.m.
Ticket proceeds will benefit the United Way of Hampshire County.