Lake Forest High School Graduate Strives For Better World

All Reagan Morehouse wants to do is make the world better.

Everything she does is incorporated into that overwhelming desire.

“She does anything she’s asked,” said Syler Thomas, Christ Church’s youth pastor. “I’ve never seen her without a smile on her face.”

Nearly all of the achievements — and there are many — are a byproduct of her desire to serve, including a Congressional Award for service, exploration, personal development and physical fitness (watch the attached YouTube video on the program). 

Morehouse spent an hour with earlier this month when he presented her with the silver medal of the Congressional Award Program. The recognition is given to anyone who qualifies by achieving set goals in public service, personal development, physical fitness and exploration, according to Dold spokesman Stefani Zimmerman. 

She already had earned the bronze medal, and hopes to receive the gold medal a year from now in Washington. 

What stayed with Morehouse in meeting Dold was not as much the talk they had, but the phone call she took as she was on her way to his 10th Congressional District office in Northbrook. 

“He called and said, ‘I’m stuck in traffic and I’m running late,’” Morehouse said. “He’s just like anybody else.” 

is one in a long line of public service, personal development and exploration achievements that began when Morehouse was a fifth-grader at .

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Morehouse felt something had to be done. Not an easy task for a fifth-grader, she began to organize her friends to make bracelets. They planned to sell the bracelets for 75 cents with the money going to the relief effort. The initial bracelets sold out and more were made. 

“We have to do something to help. If we make something it would mean more,” Morehouse told her friends. “We had hope that nothing was ever going to end, and with faith it would be restored.” 

Part of the foundation of Morehouse’s zeal for public service has roots in the eight summers she spent at Camp Onaway in Hebron, N.H. Eating a rice lunch once a week helped her develop her concern for others. 

Morehouse and her fellow campers learned about a young girl in Kenya who could afford to eat nothing but rice. They decided to eat rice once a week for lunch and donate the money to the girl’s town to help feed the villagers. 

“She only got a bowl of rice to eat. The least we could do was eat a bowl of rice a week to help,” Morehouse said. “It helped me see myself and grow more as a person.”

Camp Onaway also helped Morehouse develop her physical fitness component of the congressional award into becoming a Division One athlete on Syracuse University’s women’s crew team. 

Long a sailor, Morehouse was part of the Scouts’ nationally recognized sailing program through her junior year at Lake Forest. Then she learned how to row at camp and was hooked. 

“I could push myself further than I’ve ever gone before. This was exhilarating for me,” Morehouse said of rowing. “I never had to work that hard in my life. I would have been in awe to do one half of what I did.” 

Much of Morehouse’s public service efforts are rooted in the Christ Church youth group. She regularly goes with the group to help the people at PADS Crisis Services in North Chicago. She also went on a mission to Pippa Passes, Ky., to help people in that Appalachian community. 

Morehouse remembers rehabbing a home for the town pastor’s son and his family. “We rebuilt an entire trailer for them in five days,” she said. “There were two small children and one on the way.”

Libertyville resident Dan Goff, the Christ Church lay leader who headed the Kentucky mission, saw the trip as an opportunity for leadership development by coaching the teens to plan and do the work rather than direct them. 

“She was a quiet steady worker,” Goff said of Morehouse. “She studied each problem to emerge as a leader.” 

Morehouse also takes lessons from her efforts at PADS. “Even though they have so much less, they can be as happy as I am.”