Ethiopian Review

While the last few weeks of high school can often become a time when many seniors get lost in thoughts of summertime and what lies on the horizon, some choose to take that time to make an impact. While most make their impact in their local community, one student decided to go beyond the typical definition of community — all the way to Africa.

Upper Dublin High School senior Jack Hollingsworth, along with his older brother Brad, recently returned from spending 10 days volunteering at an orphanage in Ethiopia.

Jack, a 2009 Cappie Award winner for his role in Upper Dublin’s recent production of “The Wedding Singer” who plans to study theater at NYU in the fall, originally considered spending his time doing something related to the stage. However, he soon reconsidered his options, realizing he’ll be devoting the next four years of his life to studying theater.

“I wanted to do something that could give me perspective,” he said.

With the idea to do something that would stretch him beyond his normal routine, Jack thought of Children’s Cross Connection Ethiopia, an orphanage in the area of Soddo. A business colleague of his mother runs the orphanage and the Hollingsworth family sponsors a child at the orphanage, so it’s a place that has always been in the back of his mind.

Soon after Jack came up with the idea last October, his older brother Brad, a freshman at Norwich University in Vermont, heard about the trip and immediately wanted to come along.

After months of preparation for the trip, the brothers left for Ethiopia May 11 — just three days after Brad had returned from college.

“It was a bit of a transition,” Brad said.

That transition included an 18-hour plane ride and a five-hour jeep ride through Ethiopia before reaching the orphanage, where the two were greeted by the eagerly awaiting children, including the Hollingsworth’s sponsor child who they were finally able to see face-to-face.

After settling into their new surroundings, the two began working with the orphanage. With 36 children aged 2 to 17, plus an additional 10 who are older than 18 who live in a transition house just outside the orphanage, there was plenty for the Hollingsworths to do.

“A lot of them want to go to American universities, so I helped them on SAT prep and teaching them English,” Jack said.

In addition to tutoring, the two performed a lot of handiwork and odd jobs around the orphanage to help maintain the facility. Brad said one highlight for the children was when he repaired their ping-pong table. The two also ran errands for the orphanage’s staff, including taking some sick children to the local hospital.

For the Hollingsworths, their brief time in Ethiopia allowed them to make an impact on the lives of these children, they said. In one story, Jack described spending well over an hour working with a 16-year-old boy struggling with his language homework until he finally understood it.

“Everything clicked,” Jack said. “It was cool to feel like I affected his future.”

However, the two say they came back changed as well, having gained that new perspective Jack aimed for at the trip’s inception.

“It struck me how much they do with how simple their life is and how little they have,” Brad said.

Jack echoed his brother, saying, “I was actually really surprised about how good it is there. It’s OK. Their lives are simpler, but it seems almost easier for them to be happy.”

- By Thomas Celona | Montgomery News