Helen Gym, the reporter and school teacher

As Helen Gym arrived at the University of Pennsylvania’s campus as a first-year student from Ohio, she was unsure of herself and where she fit in. That was, until she found her place at the school’s newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian.

The newspaper got Gym off campus and into West Philly as she reported and edited stories. She learned what it meant to hold institutions accountable and started to figure out who she wanted to be. Now, she likes to say that although she attended Penn for college, she really graduated from The Daily Pennsylvanian.

“For me, it really just opened up how much Philadelphia was a place that I wanted to be a part of, that it had a fighting spirit that I wanted to see in myself,” she said.

After college, she briefly returned to Ohio to work at a small newspaper, but Philly came calling her back. While she pursued her master’s degree at Penn, she took a job as a school teacher at Lowell Elementary in Olney.

“It was just the most transformative place for me,” she told The Inquirer, describing how she got immersed in the school’s neighborhood and community. “[I] really felt connected with young people and especially with the dreams and hopes of their family members.”

Gym’s four and a half years teaching at Lowell shaped the identity she was just beginning to form at The Daily Pennsylvanian. She became an activist and community organizer, regularly traveling after school to Chinatown to fight against gentrification and displacement.

“It really taught me that leadership is not something that is just anointed or handed to you,” she said. “Leadership is earned.”

Years later, Gym led a campaign protesting against the construction of a baseball stadium in Chinatown. She advocated for public schools and helped Asian-American students at South Philadelphia High School win a federal civil rights case after they were bullied and harassed.

Gym has already made the transition from grassroots activism to governance, winning a City Council at-large seat in 2015. And while she still wants to agitate and disrupt the status quo, now that she’s running for mayor, her energy is focused on investment.

“It’s making sure that we look every young person in the eye and say that, ‘This city is invested in you.’ We are going to clean it up. We are going to make it safe, but we’re going to do it by investing in the things that make our city come alive.”

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Correction: In an earlier version of this article, the number of years Gym taught at Lowell Elementary was incorrect.