Seeing academically underperforming children from low-income households – especially Latino children – being left behind by northwest suburban public schools too large to provide the kind of individual attention they needed prompted Philip Herman in 1997 to establish a supplemental education program for low-income suburban youth of all races.  The program, originally coordinated under the auspices of the Wheeling and River Trails Park Districts, provided academically struggling students with adequate time to study and a chance to participate in healthy group recreational activities.  Herman’s vision was for his after-school program to blossom into a larger scale tutoring/mentoring initiative for middle- and high school students.  That program became the Greater Wheeling Area Youth Outreach, Inc. (GWAYO), and was incorporated as a nonprofit corporation on August 16, 2001.

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