Jillian Froelick organizes supplies she has recieved in preparation for her volunteer trip to Tanzania.

BY: Brian Faircloth
September is an exciting and significant time for most recent high school graduates. College – the next phase of their life – has or is about to begin. Jillian Froelick, NCSSM Class of 2010, is excited, too. But she won’t be moving into a college dormitory at the end of the summer. Jillian will be moving to Arusha, Tanzania, where she will volunteer for seven months with the non-profit organization Projects Abroad. Her time on the African continent will be divided between teaching English to students age 6 to 18 and volunteering at an orphanage.

It’s no surprise to Jillian that she is doing this. She has always been curious about the humanity and grandeur of the world around her. A desire to serve others was instilled in her through numerous volunteer experiences with her family while growing up. It was only natural that the two interests would one day combine.

“I’m lucky in the sense that it really didn’t occur to me that this was not something everyone did,” she says.

The notion of traveling abroad to volunteer remained a distant and vague possibility until Jillian’s junior year at NCSSM when she shared her desire with her older brother. He supported her completely. Buoyed by his encouragement, she began making plans.

Though certain about what she wanted to do, Jillian was still apprehensive about sharing her plan with her parents. But they bought into her idea, as well, after she presented them with a 24-slide PowerPoint presentation that detailed her entire idea from the logistics to the financing to its affect on her college plans.

“My dad said they always knew I would do something like this,” Jillian said. “They just didn’t know where or when.”

After investigating a multitude of volunteer organizations together, Jillian and her parents decided upon Projects Abroad as the best fit for her.

Soon, however, Jillian was met with a challenge she hadn’t anticipated. “I noticed on (Project Abroad’s) Web site that teachers teach with whatever they can bring. I was so surprised by this,” Jillian says. “The situation these students face really was so sad to me. I thought about all the learning tools I have here, and how we all take them for granted. These kids don’t have any of the books or materials I have. I knew then that I was going to have to do something besides just volunteering to help these kids.” So she began planning again, this time for a teaching supplies drive.

Three supply drives (two at NCSSM and one at her home school in Weddington, just outside of Charlotte) later, Jillian now has more than 3,000 books and all kinds of teaching materials, all stored at her home, to take with her to Tanzania in September. The NCSSM community was a tremendous support. So, too, was her home community of Weddington, mobilized in part by an article about her in the Charlotte News and Observer.

Other challenges remain. As with her entire trip, shipping the books to Arusha will be at Jillian’s own expense. To help defray those expenses, she created a Web site where donations can be accepted and also has  a Facebook page dedicated to her cause.

There are still several months to go before Jillian leaves, but she can’t wait. A new adventure, a new continent, a new life – one that is totally her own – await her. “Whenever I think about it, I feel this light inside of me,” Jillian says. “I’ve always wanted to be a person that made a difference, that had a positive impact on someone else’s life. I feel like I’m finally becoming the person I’ve always wanted to be.”

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