Nina Liverpool, 12, sat in a circle with some younger children at a recent Kids Rank meeting at Naval Station Great Lakes.
“Some of the kids were going through a tough time,” she said. “They didn’t feel like talking, and I could tell they were very sad.”
She understands that feeling.
Nina, along with her 14-year-old sister Nya, grew up not seeing their father, Rudy Liverpool, who is deployed in the Navy for months at a time.
“He was in Greece for a year, and he had to go to California for about two years, and now he’s in Japan,” Nina said.
Their mother, Kelcey Liverpool, with whom they live in Highwood, founded Kids Rank four years ago as a club for Lake County children in kindergarten through eighth grade from military families.
“Kids Rank really helps because it’s a group of kids who know what you’re going through,” said Nya, a freshman at Highland Park High School. “Having to change schools is really a pain. You’re grounded in one place. You already made your friends and are finally feeling comfortable. Right when that happens, you have to pick up and start all over again. Civilians don’t understand what that’s like.”
She and her family moved to Lake County from Virginia four years ago, and lived in Japan before that.
The Liverpools are looking forward to attending the Kids Rank inaugural ball Saturday at the Waukegan Yacht Club, where Kelcey Liverpool said Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs director Erica Jeffries will present a state proclamation celebrating April as Month of the Military Child.
Kelcey Liverpool said she founded Kids Rank to help children understand the pride of being in a military family and what it is like to give service to others.
“Military people are very proud,” Kelcey Liverpool said. “They’re super strong. They adjust. They just look at it as, ‘It’s part of our lives.'”
But that doesn’t mean the children don’t need help adjusting, she said.
“You keep them busy, you keep them active,” she said.
Kids Rank members work on team building and leadership.
“One of our biggest components is service, giving back to our community,” Kelcey Liverpool said.
Kids Rank members have delivered roses to veterans in North Chicago on Valentine’s Day, packed food at Feed My Starving Children in Libertyville and participated in other volunteer projects to serve the community, she said.
“One of my favorite projects we’re still working on is making bravery blankets,” Kelcey Liverpool said. “The kids wrote words of encouragement and drew pictures, and we’re quilting them all together to make blankets for children who are going through difficult times.”
Two of those children are in kindergarten and first grade and have a mom who is on active duty and has leukemia, she said, adding that giving back to the community mirrors what their parents are doing.
“Their parents serve the country. The kids serve their community,” she said. “It’s a very easy step to build pride in what their parents are doing, and also gives them some base in thinking about service and what that means.”
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Kelcey Liverpool has created six groups of 60 children for different ages that meet at Naval Station Great Lakes and in Highwood and Highland Park.
“We structure our group meetings so they have a very military feel,” she said.
They start by saying the Pledge of Allegiance and a special Kids Rank creed. The younger ones do physical training, such as jumping jacks and other calisthenics, and the older ones focus on service projects. The children work to earn ribbons for bravery, courage, determination and endurance.
Nina said as she has gotten older, she has learned that when the younger children are sad, they should be encouraged to play games and participate in other activities to get their minds off of missing their parents.
She and her sister remember that when they were younger, her mom created a poster-sized figure of their father, and while he was away they would kiss it and say good night to him before going to sleep.
“It made me feel like we were still connected as a family,” Nya said. “I’ve learned that’s just the way it is — you have to learn how to deal with it and know that it’s not forever.”
She added that “it probably was harder for my mom because she didn’t always have my dad there to help her.”
Rachel Neuhaus, who lives at Great Lakes with her three children and husband Joshua, said she would have appreciated having a group like Kids Rank when she was growing up and part of a military family.
“Kids Rank really helped my youngest, Athena, 11, who was going through some rough times,” Neuhaus said. “She had some anxieties about going to a new school. It helped by giving her a place she had all to herself.”
Her sisters, Xandra, 13, and Zolynn, 14, later joined the group.
Neuhaus said her daughters particularly enjoy Kids Rank’s annual camping trips, when the club members try new activities in the woods such as climbing ropes.
“Nobody put anybody down. Kids cheered each other on even if they were scared,” Neuhaus said. “These kids do so well together.”
Sometimes when military children join a civilian group, “there’s not the same camaraderie. A lot of times you’re looked at as an outsider,” she said.
Kids Rank club members realize that not only might their parents be gone for a long time, but also that club members they befriend might move.
The Neuhauses will move to Guam in June. Though it will be hard, “my girls are actually very excited,” Neuhaus said.
“We transfer quite frequently. We try to make it a big adventure,” she said. “They’re already thinking of community projects they can do when they move.”
Kids Rank, Neuhaus said, “should be worldwide. They should have one at every single base.”
The Kids Rank inaugural ball will be held 5 to 9 p.m. at the Waukegan Yacht Club at 199 Harbor Place. The public is invited to the family event.
Sheryl DeVore is a freelancer for the News-Sun