
Last year, Even, a Latin American Latino Studies and Africana Studies major and a Creative Writing and Urban Education minor (yes, two majors and two minors), was hired as a work-study student to revive community outreach at Penn’s Kelly Writers House. The afternoon at West Philadelphia Catholic was just one of the many small-scale initiatives she organized, but the event prompted her to question whether the current outreach offerings at Penn was sufficient.
Currently, the Netter Center for Community Partnerships serves as a hub and sponsors for a comprehensive array of community services. Among these is Community School Student Partnership (CSSP), which recruits and trains Penn students to assist hired staff in mentoring and tutoring at West Philadelphia schools through a series of structured programs. The Kelly Writers House also hosts a series of literary-based outreach programs, including WriteOn!, in which fourth- through eighth-graders from two local schools come to the Writers House on select Fridays and Saturdays to engage with Penn students on extracurricular writing projects.