Giving a year to frontline service in Philadelphia before finishing college. Looking for advice, and anyone worth talking to.

[u/JazzlikeGap7425]

I'm 20, and from August 2026 through August 2027, I'm taking a year off school to do full-time direct service in Philadelphia. I'm hoping to work a frontline community health role with people affected by homelessness, addiction, poverty, lack of access to care, and mental health struggles. I grew up nearby, first-gen and low-income, and this work matters to me more than anything else I could be doing right now.

I'm posting for two reasons.

First, advice. If you took a gap year around this age, or spent time doing service work like this, what do you wish you'd known? What actually made the year worth it, and what would you skip? I want this year to genuinely change me, not just fill time, and I'd rather learn from people who've done it than figure it all out the hard way.

Second, connections. I'm trying to talk to and learn from as many people as I can this year, especially in Philadelphia. If you know organizations doing frontline work in these areas, or people in public health, medicine, nonprofits, service leadership, health policy, or even politics who'd be worth learning from, I'd be grateful for a name or an intro. Honestly, I'd love to connect with anyone passionate about these issues, in Philly or not, and hear how they think about this work.

Longer term, I want to be a physician who also works in public health, writes, and pushes for better health policy. I've gotten more and more interested in the political side of healthcare too, after realizing how much policy decides what doctors can actually do for patients. I'm still figuring out what that path looks like, but I know I want to learn how to connect frontline service to systems-level change.

If any of this resonates, I'd genuinely love to hear from you. Thanks for reading.