In order to mark the beginning of the Philly Fellows’ first year of service, a welcoming reception was held in City Hall on Wed., Aug. 2 for the Fellows and their supervisors. The Philly Fellows are a group of 15 top Philly college graduates of the class of 2006 who wish to encourage other recent grads to stay in the City while giving back to the community. They began their full-time jobs on Monday at 14 different non-profit organizations in Philadelphia.

The reception featured a group of enthusiastic individuals, including City Commerce Director Stephanie Naidoff and Philly Fellows Advisor Chip Roach, who expressed their thanks for support of the program. Naidoff listed the shared interests of Mayor Street and Philly Fellows. She also mentioned the Knowledge Industry Partnership, or KIP, another program that aims to generate interest among young people in Philadelphia and encourage them to remain in the area after graduation from college.

“We will be behind you every step of the way,” Naidoff said to the Fellows beginning their year of service. She presented them with framed prints of Philly’s iconic “LOVE” statue to hang in their new homes in hopes of “keeping [them] focused on the love we have for our city and all the great things you are doing.”

Other speakers included Tim Ifill, co-founder of Philly Fellows; Gayle Issa, executive director of the Asian Arts Initiative, one of this year’s non-profit partnership agencies; and Allison Balter, a Swarthmore graduate who is part of the first class of Philly Fellows who described her post-graduation plans as “real world, non-profit style.”

After going through an interview process, each Fellow was matched up with a partnering agency according to both the individual’s and agency’s preferences. The Fellows are responsible for putting in 35 hours of work each week on specific tasks or projects, depending upon the organization. Their remaining five hours are dedicated to community projects and leadership training.

The Fellows live together in one of three houses and receive small stipends for living expenses and transportation.

As a participating partner agency, Campus Philly received its very own Philly Fellow, Bob Jobin, a graduate from UPenn. A Colorado native, Jobin came to Philadelphia for college and decided to stay, expressing an interest to “experience Philly’s culture on Philly’s terms” while emphasizing Philadelphia’s history as a city.

“It has such amazing, diverse and vibrant neighborhoods,” Jobin said, frequently commenting on the developing culture and history that makes Philadelphia unique.

“When you become part of the city and landscape, you realize you can’t get bored,” he added. When comparing Philly to Denver, he said, “You can only run up a mountain so many times.”

For two years, founders Matt Joyce and Tim Ifill have been researching, promoting, planning and organizing to make their idea become a reality, receiving support and finances from organizations including the mayor’s office, KIP, AmeriCorps and other individual sponsors.

“What got us excited about this back in the summer of ’04 was the chance to get other people excited about Philadelphia,” Ifill said in his speech to the Fellows and supervisors.

After Joyce and Ifill organized informational meetings at some of Philadelphia’s colleges, they received over 60 applicants. Both Justin Ennis, a Philly Fellow chess coordinator for after-school programs with After School Activities Partnerships, and Jobin applied as a result of the founders’ recruiting efforts.

"Everyone has different ideas of what this will do for their career,” Jobin said. He said he agreed with a philosophy espoused by Ifill and Joyce at a recruiting meeting that proposed the idea of exploring and experiencing different options for approximately six years after graduation before settling into one career. He hopes to be involved in some sort of neighborhood building process, either through education, politics or small business ownership.

Ennis, a Philly native, saw this opportunity as more of a stepping stone between college life and corporate life. Philly Fellows allows him to pursue his interest working with non-profit agencies while reaping the benefits of the education award given to AmeriCorps volunteers, as well experiencing the results of living frugally and giving back to the community.

Although the Philly Fellows are only committed to one year of service through this particular program, both Ifill and Joyce expressed high hopes and expectations for this class to pave the way for others.

“We want to give them as many opportunities to get excited in Philadelphia as possible,” Joyce said in a later interview. One of their goals repeatedly mentioned was to eventually have former Philly Fellows become directors of non-profit organizations in the area. They designed the program specifically to include the five hours of leadership building and community development to give the participants the skills needed to accomplish that goal.

Jobin is confident that the first year of Fellows will set a high standard for future participants, calling his class “a talented bunch of thinkers that want to make an impression on the city.”

“You will probably be carrying a flag for many years,” Naidoff told the first class of Philly Fellows, and all involved are anticipating great things to come from this partnership as the program develops and grows.