Three Waterloo Students Win Regional Civics Bee, Head to State

Felicity, Malaika, Penelope — Seneca County Chamber of Commerce / Discover Seneca
Paul Szmal 4:40
Blue star and red & blue text logo for "THE CIVIC TRUST" by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Three students from the same grade and same school took top honors at the Regional Civics Bee, a competition brought to the Finger Lakes area through the efforts of the Seneca County Chamber of Commerce and Discover Seneca — and now they’re heading to the state level.

Felicity Crow, Malaika Bynke, and Penelope Galens joined the FLX Morning Podcast on May 20 to talk about their winning projects and what they learned along the way. Casey Bouch of the Seneca County Chamber of Commerce was also on hand to share details about what comes next for the trio.

Felicity tackled literacy challenges in her community, researching why schools across the country are struggling to teach reading. Her proposed solution: get students back to reading full books rather than relying on short excerpts and move toward more hands-on learning approaches.

Malaika developed a program she called “Budget Bites,” a culinary education initiative aimed at helping food-insecure families stretch their dollars through home cooking. She offered a striking example: a box of Kraft mac and cheese costs around $1.90 at the store, while making it from scratch at home runs closer to 75 cents — cutting the cost by more than half.

Penelope drew inspiration from the Little Free Library concept to design a “Little Free Art Box” stocked with art supplies, addressing the lack of art programs and materials in many schools. She built a working version as part of her project.

All three students said the experience was as much about the connections they made as the competition itself — friendships formed during the bee were a highlight for each of them.

The students will compete at the state Civics Bee on July 1st. Winners who advance from the state competition earn a trip to Washington, D.C. — fitting timing as the country prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday. For more information, contact the Seneca County Chamber of Commerce.

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Paul Szmal: I have a room full of guests here because we have our three winners from the Regional Civic Speed that happened just a little while ago. This was something that the Seneca County Chamber of Commerce and Discover Seneca had a big hand in bringing to the area. And the fun thing is the three winners that we have with us this morning, y'all are in the same grade, in the same school, wow, that's pretty amazing. Alright, let me introduce everybody, first we have Felicity, helps if I turn the microphone on. Hi. There you are. Okay. Then we have Malaika. Hello. And Penelope. Hi. Okay. Felicity, let me start with you. What was the project that you did for the Regional Civic Speed this year?

Guest: I did my project on literacy problems in my community.

Paul Szmal: Okay. And what did you learn?

Guest: I learned that many schools across the U.S. are having major problems with teaching their students how to read and why we should read.

Paul Szmal: Did you find any solutions, do you think?

Guest: I did. One of our solutions is to be using more hands-on things like reading actual books and reading full books instead of less excerpts.

Paul Szmal: Wow. Okay, I can see why she won the award for that, absolutely, yeah. Malaika, go ahead and step up to the mic here. What did you do your project on?

Guest: My program was called Budget Bites and it's a culinary education program for the food insecure.

Paul Szmal: Oh, food, one of my favorite topics. So what did you learn?

Guest: Well, I learned how many people need food in the U.S. that are just living off government provisions such as given by SNAP.

Paul Szmal: Right. Right. And did you find any possible solutions to that problem?

Guest: Well, home cooking, cooking at home, learning to cook can make things less costly by 100%. Like mac and cheese, a box of Kraft mac and cheese in the store is $1.90. If you made it at home, it would only be 75 cents.

Paul Szmal: Wow, okay. Significantly cuts the cost. I am partial to homemade mac and cheese myself, so that's some good advice there. Okay, Penelope, your turn, come on up. Hi, what did you do your project on, Penelope?

Guest: I did my project on a little free art box based on the idea of a little free library.

Paul Szmal: Okay, okay. What did you learn through the course of this?

Guest: I learned that like not many schools have art programs or supplies.

Paul Szmal: Wow, that's hard to believe in this day and age. Did you find any solutions?

Guest: I did. I created a little free art box with like art supplies and stuff in it.

Paul Szmal: Excellent. What was, I'll ask you this question, what was the most fun part of doing these projects?

Guest: I liked doing the actual Civics Bee and doing my speech.

Paul Szmal: Mm-hmm. Malaika, how about you?

Guest: I made a lot of friends at the Civics Bee and it was really fun, but also the research and the study, it was all really fun to do.

Paul Szmal: Excellent. How about you, Felicity?

Guest: Well, like Malaika, I made a lot of friends and that was really fun, but I really enjoyed doing all the reading and learning actually how these kids aren't learning to read.

Paul Szmal: Wow. Okay. So you had fun, you learned something and you wound up winning, which is pretty cool. Now Casey, correct me if I'm wrong, Casey Bouch is here from the Seneca County Chamber standing over my shoulder now. They go on to the state competition, right?

Guest: They do.

Paul Szmal: Oh. Okay. Casey Bouch is advancing to the state competition with this. Are you excited for that?

Guest: Yes.

Paul Szmal: Yes. That was perfect. Everybody in unison. When is that state competition, by the way?

Guest: July 1st.

Paul Szmal: July 1st. Okay. Just in time for America's 250th birthday. Well first off, congratulations to all of you, excellent, excellent work and best of success to you when you go to the state level here, because as we know, if you advance from the state level, then you get to go to Washington DC, the nation's capital, which is really cool thing. So excellent work. Thank you so much for being here, kids. Appreciate it very much. Great work on what you did.