buildOn: Transforming Communities at Home and Abroad

It was 1990 and Jim Ziolkowski had just graduated cum laude from Michigan State University with a  bachelor's degree in finance. He was backpacking around the world, and witnessed plenty of suffering caused by extreme poverty. He also saw something different at a Nepalese village, which was having a two-day celebration for the opening of a school. Ziolkowski saw hope due to education, and the images of his travels stuck with him after he returned to the United States and began working in corporate finance. Determined to do something about what he saw abroad and aware of the poverty faced by several urban youth in America, he quit his job and founded buildOn in 1991.

Originally called Building With Books, buildOn seeks to end poverty, illiteracy, and low expectations through service and education. The non-profit organization builds schools in developing nations as well as empowers urban US high school students through in-class and intensive after-school programs. Students in buildOn's youth development programs learn about local and global issues and then contribute service to help solve them. Every week, participants tutor grade school kids, assist senior citizens, feed the homeless, and more. They also travel to developing countries to build schools alongside villagers, bringing literacy to children and adults around the world. Designed to nurture confidence and real-world skills in American youth, buildOn's after-school programs are currently being implemented in Chicago, Detroit, New York, Oakland, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Connecticut, where the non-profit is headquartered.

Since the construction of the organization's first school in Misomali, Malawi in 1992, buildOn has built 500 schools globally, educating 77,190 children and transforming communities. buildOn's schools in Malawi, Nepal, Haiti, Mali, and Nicaragua mean that students who had previously been learning in temporary shelters, traveling long distances to school, or not going to school at all now have access to education.

More than 20 years later, Ziolkowski still leads buildOn as president and CEO. In 2010, he was named one of Catholic Digest's 12 Catholic Heroes.