I started at the Northeast Ministry six years ago to do community service for high school.  The following year I was hired as a summer camp counselor.  My first couple of days at work I had no idea what to expect. Being from the middle class suburbs in Bethlehem Township, working in the Pembroke/Marvine Housing Projects opened my eyes to a different spectrum of life.  When I started working I was 16 and fell in love with my job.  I immediately noticed, me being white; that as soon as I got to work I was no longer in the majority, but in the great minority.  It was an adjustment that I had to make but it was made extremely easy because of the kids who attend camp.

The kids who attend the Ministry make the camp.  The kids aren’t placed in the best living situation and are around drugs and violence a lot more than I ever was.  I was 15 when I started and there were eight year old children who knew more about drugs and sex than I did.  This really caught my attention and I realized how sheltered my life had been up to that point.  The real world isn’t suburbia, and the real world isn’t always a kind place.

I loved working at the Ministry so much my first summer, that I became an after school tutor for the kids during the school year.  I would help the kids with their homework every school day throughout the year and then once again was a counselor at the summer camp.  After I graduated high school in 2008 and went away to college I could no longer be an after school tutor, however I still stayed with the ministry as a camp counselor in the summer.  

The 2010 summer camp just concluded and yesterday appears to be the last day that I will be employed by the ministry as I will now be forced into finding a job in my career field.  Now that I concluded my fifth consecutive year at the ministry I realized how much I gained and how lucky I was to work there.  The kids gave me so much more than I could ever give them.  They helped teach me humility, love, and openness.

I always tried to instill the morals that my parents had taught me into the kids and I always tried to be there and listen to a child when they needed something from me.  I got the great privilege of watching young children grow up into respectful young adults all filled with great potential.  

Throughout all my years we took the kids on many trips, the most memorable ones being Hershey Park, Knoebles, Philadelphia Phillies baseball games, Philadelphia duck tours, and even had a few sleepover nights in the Marjorie-Fink building.  There were definitely a few trying times for me at work, however the peaks outweigh the valleys for me times one hundred fold.  I plan on volunteering back at the ministry whenever I can get the chance in the future.

The Northeast Ministry is the most rewarding thing in my life thus far and it makes such a great impact on kids’ lives.  There are more kids than imaginable that live in the housing projects that are filled with enormous academic and athletic potential that can be unleashed with the guidance of facilities like the Northeast Ministry.  There are too many lives wasted because kids don’t have proper guidance growing up and that is unacceptable.  

I will never forget my experiences at working at the Ministry and have to thank Stephen Godbolt for giving me my first job and opening up my eyes to a different world. I am a better and more open person then I ever would have become for working at the Ministry and I hope that I made a difference in the life of at least one child, because that would put the cherry on top of an incredible life altering passage for me.

Don Sullivan
Business Management and International Business
Smeal College of Business
Penn State University Park “12 "