Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Students at one of Springfield’s public schools are getting special recognition from the state.

Lincoln Magnet School‘s Beta Club, with help from the city, recently won the Governor’s Hometown Award for a project called “Fishing Tales and Bytes of Wisdom.”

It was a project that started simple enough.

“When we all started, we just liked to fish together,” said Ian Presnell, student.  “We wanted to find a way to connect the older and younger generations.  We just started by going to nursing homes and talking to the older generations about our catches our catches while fishing, and they’d talk about theirs.  Then, eventually, it expanded into something bigger, where we’d go and talk about how to stop digital scams, and teach them something from us, the younger generation, who’s more acquainted with the tech.”

From fishing…to phishing scams.

“There are definitely a lot of memories made along the way,” said Kate Bryans, student.  “One of my favorite parts was giving back to the senior community.  Our grandparents have always told us stories.  We wanted to give back to them by teaching them about how to stay safe from scams and online fraud.”

Presnell also says it was just as beneficial for the club as it was for the senior citizens.  Superintendent Jennifer Gill says it was beneficial for District 186 Superintendent Jennifer Gill, and the whole community.

“They had some pretty heavy competitors across the whole State of Illinois,” said Gill.  “Many communities did a lot of great things, and (Lincoln) came out on top.  We had the deputy governor with us that day, and that’s a pretty special moment.”

The students had gone through a training they went through with help from the University of Illinois called “DART” — or, Deception Awareness and Resilience Training.