Lindie Droulia remembered the first time her son, Philip, borrowed her camera.
“He was 13 and we were at his father’s family’s house in New Jersey,” she said. “He asked if he could take some pictures.”
Later that evening, Lindie looked at the images stored on her camera. “I thought, ‘Oh my goodness,’” she recalled. “He captured depth of field. He captured perspective.” Not long after that, Lindie bought Philip a camera, and they’d take pictures together. On a family trip to New Orleans, Lindie said, “he had some great images.”
Philip also loved the Pittsburgh Penguins; Lindie had season tickets from the time he was two years old. He liked exploring new restaurants downtown, as well as joining friends for late-night meals at the Banksville Road Eat’n Park.
“Phil was so upbeat and so charismatic. He was extremely funny,” recalled Amanda Vehabovic, one of Philip’s close friends at Mt. Lebanon High School. “Phil was attractive to anyone who ran across him.”
Philip struggled with addiction, and Lindie dedicated herself to saving him, sending him to treatment centers and private schools and working with therapists. She recalled that Joy Rullo, Philip’s guidance counselor at Mellon Middle School, was “incredibly helpful. She was a bright light in our challenges.”
Philip died of an accidental drug overdose just after his 22nd birthday, in 2018. He was in his senior year at Point Park University, majoring in public relations and advertising with an emphasis on photography. Philip’s many friends were heartbroken. For his family, it was a cataclysm like no other. “You’re changed forever,” Lindie said simply.
While grappling with enormous grief, Lindie and her family knew they wanted to find some way to honor and remember Philip, and help others at the same time.
“I heard Philip’s voice one night. He said, ‘Focus on my positives,’” Lindie recalled. “He was such a creative person. That always seemed to be a place of healing for him.”
By a sad coincidence, Lindie was already involved with Little Wings of Hope, a local nonprofit organization founded by her friends Eileen and Guy Granata in memory of their daughter, Bethany, who died of an accidental overdose in 2009. Little Wings of Hope supports young adults enrolled at the Caron Treatment Center in Berks County.
Through Little Wings, Lindie heard of the Bridge Way School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s only licensed high school focused on students in addiction recovery. Art, including photography, is an integral part of its curriculum. “I texted Eileen and said, ‘I think I found our mission,’” Lindie said.
Beyond the Lens Project: The Philip A. Droulia Foundation was created in 2022. With the assistance of Little Wings of Hope, the foundation awarded a $10,000 grant to The Bridge Way School to create a digital photography studio in Philip’s name. This year, the foundation is funding the appointment of a photographer in residence who is also in recovery.
Lindie recently retired after a long career at Carnegie Mellon University, leaving as an associate director for university events and alumni engagement. “Philip always said he grew up on the CMU campus,” she recalled, because he attended the school’s Center for Early Education. After raising her children on Vallevista Avenue, Lindie now lives on Gilkeson Road. She’s looking forward to traveling and spending more time with family, including her daughter Kara Schaefer of Bethel Park and her grandson Connor. And like her son, Lindie finds solace and pleasure in making art.
“I do my photography, and I’m a crafty person,” she said. She enjoys repurposing wine bottles with alcohol ink, and decorating tiles to give to friends. The projects, she said, “help me to keep going.”
And so does the Beyond the Lens Project. “It’s important to me to continue to share Philip’s vision of the world.”
For more information on Beyond the Lens Project: The Philip A. Droulia Foundation, visit www.beyondthelensproject.org [1].