Essential resources.
Zero stigma.
All students.
Fueling student success through community care
Get in touch DonateOur Story
OPRF High School Mutual Aid started in fall 2025 with a simple, urgent observation: students needed help getting to and from school safely. As our founders started listening — really listening — to students, important stories emerged. Many were quietly struggling to afford lunch. Basic needs were going unmet. Resources exist in the community, but students didn't know about them, couldn't access them easily, or felt too uncomfortable to ask.
That discomfort was the problem we decided to solve first.
We created OPRF HS Mutual Aid to normalize asking for help and make giving back feel natural — a community where neither act requires courage. It's just what we do for one another in healthy communities.
What started as a small, scrappy effort to connect students with resources has grown into a structured mutual aid network, incorporated in January 2026 as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Donations support our mission, with full transparency and accountability.
"We are not a charity. We are neighbors taking care of neighbors in solidarity with each other."
Our Mission
Our mission is to support the success and well-being of students at Oak Park and River Forest High School by mobilizing the school and broader community to provide reliable, stigma-free access to essential resources — including food, clothing, and other basic needs — so that all students can learn, thrive, and participate fully in school and community life.
Our work is student-centered and informed by student voice and lived experience. We integrate universal design principles to ensure equitable access, dignity, and belonging.
Our Philosophy
Many programs make you prove you "need" help before they'll provide anything. At OPRF HS Mutual Aid, we operate using a mutual aid framework: if you're a Huskie, you're in.
Charity flows one direction — from those who have to those who don't. Solidarity recognizes that we're all in this together. A student who needs a snack today might be the one stocking the cabinet tomorrow. The community member who donates this month might need something different next year. Mutual aid works because everyone participates and everyone benefits.
We also believe that the best solutions come from the people closest to the problem. That's why student voice is the foundation of all of our work. We start with what students are actually experiencing and build from there.