City Teens Profile: Eliza Hens-Greco

Written by: Kate Snyder, Development and Donor Communications Coordinator


I thought it might be fun to start off our series on the City Teens by profiling a previous participant of the program who has returned this summer to volunteer again with EECM. A great big Welcome Back to Eliza Hens-Greco, member of the 2005 City Teens.

Eliza, who just graduated this spring from Winchester Thurston School, spent the summer after her freshman year of high school participating in the City Teens Project. She was familiar with EECM through her church (First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh, an EECM Member Congregation) which serves monthly meals at our Men’s Shelter. Eliza was looking for something fun to do over the summer and the City Teens Project fit the bill.

Working 3-4 days a week from 9am to 3:30pm, Eliza experienced the full scope of EECM’s Hunger Programs – she unloaded and sorted the huge daily donations of bread from local grocery stores, stuffed Food Pantry bags, served in the kitchen, and worked with visiting groups on projects like cleaning the Men’s Emergency Shelter.

But her favorite job was working the “Extras Room” at the Food Pantry. After clients received their two bags of household staples, Eliza would accompany them to the Extras Room that housed fresh produce, bread, and other miscellaneous food donations. She helped them select items they needed, chatting for about ten minutes in the process.

Eliza says, “I loved working in the Extras Room. All of the prep work – like bags and meal preparation – was fun because the staff and other volunteers were great, but in the Extras Room, I was able to have personal contact with the people we were serving and it was amazing. I got to hear their stories and get to know them. They had such beautiful stories and they were lovely and gracious people. I always looked forward most to working in the Extra’s Room and it was my interactions with clients there that stayed with me when I went home for the day.”

This fall, Eliza heads to Earlham College in Indiana. But she’ll be spending the next few weeks before the start of orientation volunteering once again with EECM. We’re glad to have her back!