From Penn Students to Penn Heroes

A COLLEGE CLUB THAT OFFERS A SPARK OF LIGHT TO THOSE WHO ARE SUFFERING THROUGH DARK TIMES. BY: TYLER LAWSON C’20 ILLUSTRATION BY GRACELYNN WAN C’22

Every community service based club on campus hopes to be a hero to the people they serve. Penn Heroes, however, takes that mission to a whole new level. Founded in 2019, Penn Heroes is an organization full of students who enjoy wearing costumes just as much as they enjoy making people smile. Members of Penn Heroes volunteer at children’s hospitals visiting patients as princesses, superheroes, and other childhood characters to bring joy to the children and their families.

Penn Heroes was inspired by an organization at the University of Pittsburgh that allows students to dress in costume and visit children’s hospitals. Founding members of the club, Baotram Nguyen, Ouen Mali, Sarah Khan, and Daniel Rodriquez, noticed a void among the vast sea of Penn clubs that served the community in this way. Several community service clubs at Penn help children in the Philadelphia area: however, none of them provide a service that allows children to interact with their favorite characters as they undergo treatment. The fact that Philadelphia has an abundance of children’s hospitals proved that this idea would be a meaningful way to bring joy to the surrounding community and help those who are enduring difficult situations.

At any local children’s hospital, you can find members of the club dressed up as superheroes, princesses, or even the popular Pokémon character Pikachu. The Penn Heroes volunteers do their best to brighten up a child’s day, and they even manage to escape the oftentimes overwhelming pressures of Penn through this creative outlet. The organization lacks the pressure of the high-stress, rejection riddled, deadline driven clubs in place for a relaxed, family and children oriented volunteer-based club. And not to mention, buying costumes on Halloween’s off-season is always a fun bonding activity for the members.

Samantha Turner (C’23), the club’s publicity and design chair, joined Penn Heroes during her first semester at Penn, and has found it to be a life changing experience ever since. “[Joining] completely altered my career experience. “I have spent several Saturdays working at events for kids

and getting to know all the other volunteers. I absolutely love getting to volunteer with the kids,” Samantha says. She recommends this club for anyone who is looking to come out of their shell, or learn how to be a leader in their community. From personal experience, she found that dressing up as Supergirl helped her emulate all the confidence her character is praised for. She began to collaborate better with her classmates, connect with children, and become a more outgoing leader. After all, how many opportunities in life do you get to dress up as an actual superhero?

In terms of the Penn community, Penn Heroes is one of the smaller and newer clubs on campus, as they were just founded in the 2018-2019 school year. However, the appeal of ditching Penn face for a superhero mask attracts more and more students to this unique volunteer club. Each semester, Penn Heroes finds that their name has more recognition and more visibility. This club also prides themselves on having deep connections with their members by bonding over their volunteering experiences and ensuring a warm, welcoming atmosphere that makes any Penn student feel accepted. Nevertheless, Penn Heroes would like to see the club grow even further.

When it comes to volunteering, club members believe that most students should volunteer if they have the time. But campus life can get busy, and students often struggle to find a way to volunteer that meets their own needs. That’s a problem that Penn Heroes hopes to solve in the Penn community. The club offers a low commitment, innovative, and caring way to engage with the surrounding Philadelphia community. Samantha says that Penn Heroes would like to see a volunteer community at Penn— where community service is a high priority among the students.

While life at Penn may get stressful and busy, if you have even the smallest desire to step off campus and give your time to the community, clubs like Penn Heroes are waiting to help you serve in a fun, creative, and rewarding environment. And if you see someone in a Pikachu costume strolling down Locust Walk, know that they’re wearing it for a good cause!