Seniors realize vision with Project America

For Wharton seniors Tim Fazio and Joe Kohli, some things are more important than the "college experience" -- like changing the world. While some students spend their after-class hours at parties and with extracurricular activities, Fazio and Kohli have worked more than 100 hours a week at times to make their dream of creating a national day of community service into a reality. And after several exhausting years of negotiating with the mayors of two large cities and major corporations, such as Reebok and Evian, "Project America," will finally take place on October 15. On this long-awaited day, hundreds of thousands of people in more than 16 cities will volunteer their time and energy to everything from building ramps for the disabled to painting over graffiti, Kohli said. "It's not hard to do something like this," he said of his accomplishment. "You just need a good idea." But while Kohli said organizing a national day of community involvement was not difficult, he and Fazio admitted that it was also not exactly a walk in the park. The students had to take a leave of absence last year to establish the Project America headquarters in a low-rent warehouse in Kohli's hometown of Skokie, Ill., he said. During this time, Fazio and Kohli set up a toll-free Project America hotline that directs callers to different volunteer community service organizations in which they can become involved. The students also spent much of their time last year asking large corporations to endorse their campaign. When Fazio and Kohli first began asking companies for support in 1992 they encountered a myriad of closed doors, but the students were eventually able to obtain free computers, publicity, an "800" number and the production of a book about their organization. "We got more 'no's' in those first few months than we ever got in our lives," Kohli said. "We were pretty young and we didn't have legitimacy -- but the idea was a good one and people really liked it." Kohli, who will not return to the University until the spring semester, is still running the understaffed office in Skokie consisting entirely of volunteers, he said. Fazio, however, is back on campus after his one-year hiatus. With a little help from his fax machine, he has been able to remain active in Project America. Fazio said he first came up for the idea for Project America when he was a senior in high school. "Everyone I knew had this massive frustration -- people were being overwhelmed by social problems," he said. "[I thought] there should be a way that every individual could make a contribution to solve the problems." Kohli said when he first heard of Fazio's idea, he decided to get involved. "It was a chance to do something we'd never again [have] in our lives," he said. "We were propelled by a lot of enthusiasm."

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