University senior Tiffany Hunt predicted she’d learn a lot and shed a few tears during her first trip to an Underground Railroad museum. Her prediction came true Saturday.

Hunt, vice president of the NAACP on campus, was one of almost 50 students, faculty and community members to travel to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati this weekend. Project Excellence–a tutoring and mentoring program that pairs at risk 3rd through 12th grade students from Toledo with University students–hosted the one-day trip.

“I had always heard about museums like this but had never been to one,” Hunt said. “Being an African American, it’s my history. It’s American history and it’s my history. It kind of puts you in a first hand perspective of what (slaves) went through.”

This is exactly what Angel Lett, president of Project Excellence, hoped participants would gain from Saturday’s event, she said. Ten students being helped by the program attended the event for free through donations from various on-campus and local sponsors.

“I want them to have a greater perspective of what the Underground Railroad was really like,” Lett said. “It’s one thing to hear about something, but when you see it yourself, it puts a different perspective on it.”

The Freedom Center, nestled between Paul Brown Stadium and the Great American Ballpark on the north side of the Ohio River in downtown Cincinnati, has seen more than 30,000 guests since its grand opening Aug. 23. Interactive exhibits exploring how slavery exists today, art galleries, films and historical artifacts are staples of the 158,000-square-foot museum. A two-story wooden “slave pen”– used to hold slaves until they were traded–was rescued from a tobacco farm in Mason County, Kentucky and is also on display.

With planning beginning in 1995, the $110 million project has received national media coverage and support from celebrities like Muhammad Ali, Danny Glover, Rosa Parks, Bono and Oprah Winfrey, who narrated a short film for the museum.

For the students they tutor, the trip was an opportunity to learn a different way, Lett said, because the Freedom Center promised to be a “different” type of museum.

“Most of the time when you think of museums, you think it’s going to be boring,” she said. “I want people to have fun.”

And other students, like freshman Brittany Vaughn, noticed the difference too.

“It was something different. I’m tired of going to the same type of museums over and over,” Vaughn said. “I did learn something. (The museum) gave you more details and with details it gives you something more to think about.”

What is Project Excellence? Created two years ago by Napoleon Bradford, part-time instructor in Education Foundations and Inquiry, Project Excellence was started as a way to reach out to students attending his church, Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Toledo.

“(Project Excellence) started as a way to help and encourage at risk Toledo students that they could achieve past their current circumstances by exposing them to students coming from similar situations that made it to college,” said Bradford, now the executive director of the program.

University freshman Marcus Hooker says he’s the perfect example of how Project Excellence can make a difference. Hooker, the first student involved in Project Excellence to graduate high school and come to the University, credits the program for challenging him with his schoolwork.

“By the end of the first day I went I fell in love with it,” he said. “There’s so much help there.”

But since its founding, the program has expanded to include more students who want the additional help that it’s not just a ministry for students at Mt. Zion anymore, Bradford said. Last year the program ended with just over 40 students and organizers hope to have 60-70 students receiving help by the end of this year, Bradford said.

With more growth, Bradford wants to see the mentors making more of the decisions. The group also became a registered on-campus student organization over the summer to strengthen the ties to campus, he said.

“I’m really hoping to allow a lot of the organization’s development to be in the mentors’ hands,” he said.

For Project Excellence President Angel Lett, that means finding funding for supplies and encouraging others on campus to get involved.

“A huge long-term goal for us is to better accommodate our students,” she said. “I would really like to open it up and bring it farther than where it is. I think (Project Excellence) is a lot of blessings for everyone involved.”

*For more information about Project Excellence or to become a mentor, e-mail Angel Lett at: [email protected]. Sessions are held every Thursday from 6-8 p.m. in rooms 111 and 113 of the Business Administration Building.