PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Ryan Rydzewski
Communications Officer, The Grable Foundation; Author

Ryan Rydzewski enjoyed his work as an educator teaching in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but decided he’d return to his home of Western Pennsylvania to enroll in the master of fine arts nonfiction program at Chatham University.

He thought he’d give his dream of being a writer one final chance. While there, he got an internship at The Pittsburgh Foundation, and everything came together.

Today, he’s the communications officer at The Grable Foundation, a philanthropic organization that supports kids and learning across Western Pennsylvania, which means he gets to combine all of his passions into one job, including mentoring aspiring writers. His path also led to him co-writing “When You Wonder, You’re Learning: Mister Rogers’ Enduring Lessons for Raising Creative, Curious, Caring Kids” with Grable Foundation Executive Director Gregg Behr.

“The appetite for what Fred did and what we can learn from it is still really strong,” he says.