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Helping Kids in Pittsburgh

Julia Franzen helping local kids.

Soon after Julia Franzen started attending college in Pittsburgh, Pa., a campus Christian group became the influence behind her volunteering efforts at a local non-profit called the Pittsburgh Project.   

“I joined The Body Christian Fellowship and was looking for a chance to do something good within my new college community,” she says.  “Someone mentioned The Pittsburgh Project, and I knew I wanted to volunteer, so I contacted them.”

The Pittsburgh Project, as its name implies, is a local organization that operates after school programs and summer camps to 450 urban kids.  The program also assists with home repairs for elderly homeowners and provides economic development for Pittsburgh neighborhoods.

After Julia contacted them, she immediately got involved with their after school tutoring program.  She would show up for two hours a day, a couple days a week, and in between her own college courses, she assisted a group of first-grade students in improving their reading skills.  She was also assigned to tutor a group of fifth-grade boys, which she admits was the most challenging.  “Fifth-grade boys do not like to be told what to do,” she says with a smile.

But her experience has been rewarding.  “Tutoring allows me to dedicate myself to one kid and watch them improve and learn to love the subjects they used to hate,” says Franzen.  “After you’ve been there for a while, you see them get excited about what they are learning, or they run up to you excited to read you a new book for the first time.  That smile and excitement from the kids makes me happy and energizes me to keep going back.”

Franzen is taking a break from Pittsburgh Project this summer to volunteer at a summer day camp in her home town in Illinois, but she says she hopes to return when school starts back in the fall.  “I personally just get a lot of joy out of helping people, whatever it is,” she says.