Reflections on 30 Years of Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia

A Community Celebration

Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia, one of Germantown Friends School’s signature community education programs, achieved a remarkable milestone: its 30th anniversary. From its inception in 1995 (then known as Summerbridge) to 2025, Breakthrough’s dual-mission program has provided exceptional tuition-free academic enrichment programming to 1,600 student Scholars and hands-on training and classroom experience for 500 Teaching Fellows.

The year-round program, which includes an intensive summer session, serves highly-motivated and traditionally underserved students from fifth through twelfth grades, with a focus on middle schoolers, who are at a critical juncture in their educational journeys. Breakthrough is an academic accelerator that has helped 83% of its middle school participants get into top choice criteria-based high schools. 

As 6abc co-anchor Nydia Han, emcee of the annual Breakthrough Soiree, succinctly put it: “Breakthrough comes in to level the playing field.”

This year’s Soiree was held on May 1 at the Bellevue Hotel. It was a festive, affirming celebration, lifting up the many people who have been part of the program over the decades. In addition to community leaders, longtime staffers and supporters, GFS faculty and staff, and current Breakthrough students, a number of adults who attended the program as youths were in attendance.

One Breakthrough alum, Kamryn Davis, the Programs Director for PA Youth Vote and a Black history social media creator, reflected on how the program was supportive through every transitional point in her life.   

“Whether that was needing a math teacher when my middle school didn’t have one, making lifelong friends, or even feeling comfortable in my first year in college because I knew people from this program, Breakthrough has been there for me,” she said. “I love that because of its mission, I can be a breakthrough for someone else.” 

Breakthrough has also launched hundreds of successful careers in education. After graduating from GFS in 2002, Matthew Greenawalt switched paths from investment banking to teaching after a life-changing summer as a Teaching Fellow at Breakthrough. He is now a Middle School math teacher at GFS and co-dean of faculty at Breakthrough. 

“I think back to the teaching coaches I had at Breakthrough and I think about how this is a wholly-inspired program, because aspiring teachers rarely get mentored like this, by people who are passionate about education, and who want to be there for you,” Greenawalt said.

Looking Back

The program was launched by Julie Friedberg ’89, former GFS head of school Dick Wade and his wife, Cheryl Wade, and GFS parent Peggy Greenawalt. The GFS campus was home to the summer and year-round sessions. There were temporary second sites at St. Joseph’s University and Drexel University, but GFS has consistently been Breakthrough’s main campus. 

Throughout its history, many other GFS alumni and faculty have been deeply involved with the program: training Teaching Fellows, volunteering, serving in leadership roles on the board, or working directly with Breakthrough. 

Darren Spielman ’90 served as executive director of Breakthrough from 2004 through 2009. A lifelong Philadelphian, he’s always been invested in educational equity.

“When I heard about Breakthrough, the idea of students teaching students and helping younger people struck my passion,” he said. “Working at Breakthrough was fun from day one. There’s a lot of joy and hard work, and a ton of learning on all sides—everyone is building hard skills, as well as motivation, tenacity, and spirit.”

Across the five years that Spielman was leading Breakthrough, it tripled its operating budget, developed more infrastructure, and ramped up fundraising efforts. Part of his strategy for increasing fundraising capacity was to gather more outcome data and metrics on both Scholars and Teaching Fellows.

The Breakthrough staff mailed out surveys to every Scholar and Teaching Fellow who had ever been in the program. The anonymous surveys gathered qualitative data about their lives, including test scores, grade point averages, and career paths. Concurrently, they sent out in-program surveys to gauge what was and wasn’t serving the participants. The data they gathered enabled them to create a report, which attracted interest from corporations, foundations, and individual donors. 

What they also found from the surveys was solid proof of Breakthrough’s ongoing impact on its participants.

“Many Teaching Fellows reported that they had a far better understanding of educational equity, and that the program made it more likely that they’d become teachers,” Spielman said. “The Scholars reported seeing themselves as hard workers and successful students. There were also improvements in grades, work habits, and organizational skills.”  

Direct feedback from parents and caregivers was also illuminating. 

“One mom told us her kid never used to read books, and by the end of the summer she was catching him staying up late, reading under the covers,” Spielman recalled.

Even after his tenure as executive director, Spielman remains committed to Breakthrough. He has served on the advisory board for eight years, and chaired the development committee.

“That’s how much I care about Breakthrough,” he said. “It changes lives, there’s no question.”
 

A Teaching Fellow’s Journey

Nicholas Wilson came to Breakthrough as a Teaching Fellow in 2011. He was drawn to Breakthrough after changing his college major from psychology to education.

“A professor really connected the dots and helped me see how I could make a meaningful impact through teaching,” Wilson said. “I wanted to test the waters at Breakthrough, and there, I fell in love with teaching the students we worked with, the beautiful personalities they had, and the connections we made.”

As a Teaching Fellow, Wilson taught reading and a creative writing elective. In that class, he worked with kids who’d never been exposed to creative writing before, and he relished watching them find their voices through poetry and spoken word. 

“One Scholar said that it was my creative writing class that nurtured their love of learning, and that was a full circle moment for me, seeing what these experiences can do for students,” Wilson said.

He returned as a Breakthrough Teaching Fellow for three years, and in 2014, became the Dean of Students. Then, from 2016-2018, he was Breakthrough’s site manager. All along the way, the relationships he formed with everyone involved—Scholars and their families, Teaching Fellows, and teaching coaches—were the common thread of his experiences:

“As I transitioned into dean, I was able to make more connections, and that enriched my experiences and my level of understanding of the responsibility of my role. As site manager, I grasped the privilege of being able to support and inspire other Teaching Fellows in the process.”

Wilson went on to teach at KIPP Philadelphia Preparatory Academy and Julia R. Masterman School in Philadelphia, served as assistant principal for Hardy Williams Mastery Charter School, and was program director for Surge Academy of Philadelphia. He recently completed his final semester in graduate school, studying educational leadership at Bank Street College.

2020 and Beyond: A New Partnership

Breakthrough and Germantown Friends School have always been intertwined, but in 2020, the partnership deepened. Jason Duckworth, a real estate developer who was chair of Breakthrough’s board at the time, remembered:
  
“I was involved with Breakthrough through complicated times. We were flying a plane that was having some troubles, and we landed it on the deck of the USS GFS. That turned out to be a happy marriage, working very closely with [GFS Head of School] Dana Weeks and members of the School Committee [GFS’ Board of Trustees].” 

Germantown Friends School acquired Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia; the arrangement was finalized in 2021, and blessed by then-Pennsylvania Attorney General (now Governor) Josh Shapiro. 

The arrangement is innovative: GFS powers Breakthrough's program with operational support, curriculum enhancements, experienced faculty to coach Teaching Fellows, and facilities to house offices and programs. Breakthrough remains an independent nonprofit entity, and is responsible for its own budget and fundraising. 

“The operational efficiencies of the partnership provides Breakthrough the ability to consistently deliver positive outcomes to our students and Teaching Fellows on a relatively small budget making it one of the most high-impact and cost-effective educational programs in Philadelphia,” said Michelle Palmer, Executive Director of Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia.

The strong commitment that GFS has made—and continues to make—to Breakthrough is part of the school’s broader focus on community education partnerships and programs, one of the pillars of the Picture This comprehensive campaign. An exciting step toward long-term investment in this work is a newly endowed fund for GFS' community education programs, which includes Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia. Because it is endowed, this funding will be available in perpetuity, providing greater stability as GFS continues to scale these programs, expand partnerships, and, ultimately, strengthen outcomes for young people in the Philadelphia area.

“We at GFS believe fervently in Breakthrough and its mission of educational equity and access, and are committed to seeing Breakthrough succeed,” said GFS Head of School Dana Weeks. “GFS believes in the power of education to foster community and transform lives, and Breakthrough is a living example.”

Breakthrough continues to evolve and expand its reach. In summer 2022, it increased Scholar enrollment by 56%; in 2024, it surpassed 200 Scholars and Teaching Fellows enrolled in the Summer program. That year, the College Bound pilot program launched, bringing in 18 Breakthrough students for six school-year sessions that included resume-writing workshops, mock interviews, and visits to college campuses. 

In 2025, Breakthrough is embarking on an expanded “end-to-end support” model: the year-round and summer programs will now open to fifth graders, and College Bound will support students in ninth through twelfth grades. For some students in Philadelphia, that could mean eight consecutive years of support, encouragement, and mentorship through Breakthrough. 

“Our ultimate goal is to get our students into college/successful career paths and to get our Teaching Fellows into the field of education,” Palmer said. “We want to support them on the entire  journey through the program with exposure to meaningful opportunities so when they leave us they will be well prepared and know that  they will always have their Breakthrough family in their corner.”

The Breakthrough Staff and Advisory Board extend their gratitude to everyone who made the summer a success! Catch coverage from 6abc and a joint op-ed in NextCity by Breakthrough Executive Director Michelle Palmer and Sharif El-Mekki, founder and CEO of the Center For Black Educator Development. For more information on Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia, visit their website.