Cora Wawrzyniak gripped a lime green compound bow and pulled back the string.

She paused a moment, eyeing her target before letting the orange-tipped arrow fly.

It stuck just to the left of the bull’s-eye. She immediately reached for another arrow, lined up her shot and fired, hitting the target once again.

Cora, 12, of Beechview was one of about a dozen kids taking aim Thursday at three targets set up along the wall in the gym of Grandview Church of God in Pittsburgh’s Beechview neighborhood.

She was participating in the first round of a pilot archery program being offered for free to city kids, ages 10 to 18, through the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

The program was expected to draw only a handful of up-and-coming archers, said Charlene Saner, neighborhood services coordinator for Councilman Anthony Coghill, whose office helped to launch the program.

Instead, all 12 spots quickly filled up, and about 30 more kids are on a waiting list.

The first round of the hourlong weekly class goes from July 18 to Aug. 22, and two new classes are expected to begin in September.

“It’s been pretty fun,” Cora said between shots.

Everyone involved in the program has been welcoming, she said, and she’s quickly picked up on archery.

“It was kind of easy for me,” Cora said. “It’s fun once you get to learn how to do it.”

Cora’s father, Aaron Wawrzyniak, said his daughter always saw herself as Katniss Everdeen, the bow-and-arrow-wielding protagonist of popular “The Hunger Games” book and movie series, so she was excited to try archery for herself.

“This is great,” he said as he watched his daughter mingle with her new friends. “Everybody can do this.”

Tic-tac-toe

Archery seems to be growing in popularity. According to World Archery, the sport jumped 12 places to rank as the seventh most popular sport on social media in 2021. It’s an Olympic sport, first appearing in 1900 in the Paris games. A 2020 survey conducted for the Archery Trade Association found there were nearly 18 million recreational archers in the U.S.

Lucia Tobrul, 11, of Beechview said she was nervous about letting the arrows fly at first. But archery instructor Erica McGrath helped her practice until it started to feel more natural.

Now, Lucia said with a thumbs-up, she’s getting better.

“I like hitting the target,” she said.

It’s been exciting to learn a new skill this summer, said Remy Folino, 11, of Beechview.

“I feel like I’ve been getting a lot better,” Remy said.

During Thursday’s class, McGrath gave the kids pointers on their stances, their draws and their aims. She praised good shots and offered encouragement when arrows missed their targets.

After several rounds of hitting bull’s-eye-style targets, McGrath flipped the targets around and made tic-tac-toe boards out of blue tape on the back of the targets. Participants paired off, aiming their arrows and trying to hit three squares for a win.

Nancy Tobrul, Lucia’s mother, said her daughter lit up when they found the archery program through Coghill’s social media page.

Tobrul said she was eager to find an activity to keep her daughter off her phone and computer this summer.

“Had this not happened, it’s something she would’ve never been exposed to,” Tobrul said. “It’s something so cool that she just takes to. She loves it.”

Archery seems to be gaining popularity in Beechview, said Coghill, who represents the neighborhood.

“It’s not an activity I grew up with,” he said, watching the young archers hit their targets again and again. “It was baseball or football. That was it.”

Coghill said he was impressed by how quickly and accurately the arrows streaked from the young archers’ bows, though they’d been at it for only a few classes.

Staying out of trouble

The Rev. Ken Wade — who opens up the church’s gym for archery, soccer, food distribution and other community programs, all at no cost — said he wants his church to double as a community center in one of the few Pittsburgh neighborhoods that doesn’t have a city-run recreation facility.

As arrows whizzed through the air on half of the gym, volunteers used the rest of the space to organize tables with potatoes, onions and zucchini for a free produce distribution event set to happen later that afternoon.

Wade, who has been at the Beechview church since 2020, said his priority is to have a positive impact on the community, with a focus on providing a welcoming, safe space for local children. Keeping kids engaged, he said, will keep them out of trouble.

McGrath is the director at Magee Recreation Center in the city’s Garfield neighborhood. Each Thursday afternoon, she heads to Wade’s church for an hour to teach the basics of archery.

McGrath, of Pittsburgh’s Carrick section, grew up attending a nature camp in Wheeling, W.Va., where she learned how to use a bow and arrow. She later got a job at the nature camp and helped with its archery classes. In her free time, McGrath shoots a bow and arrow when she participates in medieval reenactments with the Society for Creative Anachronism.

After getting a job with Pittsburgh’s Department of Parks and Recreation nearly a decade ago, McGrath urged her supervisors to sign off on archery training so she could lead her own programs.

She is certified through the National Archery in Schools Program and USA Archery.

McGrath said she’s not generally interested in sports and never got into more popular athletic activities but found a sense of calm and enjoyment from archery.

Now, she’s hoping to share that with the next generation.

“I was looking to do things that might reach kids that aren’t reached by basketball or soccer or other traditional sports,” she said.

Failure breeds success

At her clinic in Beechview, kids start by learning about safety. Then come the fundamentals: how to stand, draw the bow and aim. Participants use adjustable compound bows, perfect for kids of all sizes and abilities. Depending on how they’re adjusted, drawing them feels like pulling on the equivalent of 11 to 20 pounds.

McGrath said archery has broad appeal and can be a good activity for the young and old. There’s even a push for archery classes at some local senior centers, she said.

One day, McGrath would like to see the youth program expand across the city — but that would require more equipment and more certified instructors.

She thinks the popularity comes, in part, because archery is something of a novelty.

McGrath said she sees kids get a lot of benefits from participating in archery programs. Many of the kids in the Beechview class already have formed new friendships in the first few weeks. It’s a way for them to get out of the house and be active during the summer months.

Plus, McGrath said, it’s just fun.

But McGrath said she thinks the most important thing archery teaches kids is how to get over failures.

Even after a few weeks of practice, some of the kids Thursday missed targets altogether, their arrows loudly clanging off the wall behind the target.

McGrath offered some tips and encouragement, and their shots improved.

When kids pick up a bow for the first time, McGrath said, they won’t immediately hit their target, much less hit consistent bull’s-eyes.

Instead, they learn to deal with mistakes and learn from them. They get to watch their own personal growth and improvement.

“You have to fail,” McGrath said. “And you have to keep confronting it.”

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