Jeff Putthoff, S.J., is a Jesuit priest who has lived and worked in Camden, N.J. for the last 18 years. He is the founder and outgoing executive director of Hopeworks ’N Camden, a youth technology program that teaches web design/development, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Salesforce Administration to youth between the ages of 14 and 23. Earlier this summer, Father Putthoff announced that he will step down from running Hopeworks but will continue temporarily in his role as founder.
Father Putthoff holds a B.A. in philosophy from Saint Louis University, an M.A. in English from Loyola University Chicago and an M.Div and M.A. in Theology from Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass. He is currently studying at the University of Pennsylvania for an M.A. in Organizational Dynamics and is an AKRI consultant.
He founded Hopeworks in 1999 as a response to the youth crisis in Camden, where over 50 percent of the population is under 18, only 25 percent of adults have a high school diploma and the per capita income is $5,700 a year. The public high school dropout rate is 70 percent in the city of Camden and 53 percent of all youth there are living below the poverty line.
On Aug. 6, I interviewed Father Putthoff by email about his work and the legacy he leaves behind at Hopeworks.
[For more of this story, written by Sean Salai, S.J., go to http://americamagazine.org/con...-qa-jeff-putthoff-sj]
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