Tucked away in the back of Miner School in Arlington Heights is a greenhouse and sustainable vegetable garden.

Students at the therapeutic day school helped to cultivate its plants -- mostly different varieties of lettuce and spinach -- during the spring, with the hopes of growing fresh vegetables for the Wheeling Township Food Pantry.

These community partners were recognized during a celebration that originally had been designed to honor the Northwest Suburban Special Education Organization's "Shining Stars," or students and faculty who had gone above and beyond. This year, they included community partners of the education cooperative, which serves students from a number of local school districts.

Honorees included Frank Paolillo of Park Ridge and his company, the Magellan Corp. in Deerfield, who together donated 20 iPads to students at Timber Ridge School, another therapeutic day school in Arlington Heights.

"We wanted to help further students' educational and social development," Paolillo said.

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