PITTSBURGH — Chippewa Township resident Carolina Frantz was recently recognized as the Pittsburgh Steelers nominee for the 2024 NFL Changemakers. 

The National Football League and the Pittsburgh Steelers have worked together to showcase local leaders who are making a difference in their communities during the NFL’s Inspire Change Weeks since 2017. 

“It is exciting and a humbling experience for me,” Frantz said. “I had mentioned to them [the Steelers] when I won the award that I couldn’t believe that I could have won it because there are so many people out there in the community doing all sorts of things. I am just a normal human being, a nurse, looking to make things better for people. I am truly honored to have been chosen for it.”

For Pittsburgh Steelers senior director of community relations Blayre Holmes Davis, honoring Frantz, who has given so much to the community, is an important thing to do. 

“We want to take the time to recognize the unsung heroes in our community and we appreciate folks like Carolina who are there to do the work and are there to receive services. We are honored to uplift her story and the work that she has done over the years and everything that is going to come along with it,” Holmes Davis said. 

Frantz is currently the BSN-AID Program Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Duquesne University where she helps support students and mentor underrepresented students in nursing. 

Back in 2018, Frantz decided to found the Western Pennsylvania Area Chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses with an old colleague who worked at Pittsburgh Mercy. 

She signed up the chapter to become a distributor of socks from the company Bomba’s. For every pair of socks purchased, the company would also donate a pair. 

For three years, the chapter had to wait to become distributors but once Frantz was chosen, she hit the ground running helping the Pittsburgh region all while sorting and distributing socks out of her garage.

“After I received the socks, I contacted my friend at Pittsburgh Mercy who gave me a list of all of the shelters in the Pittsburgh area that needed sock donations to help move product. After contacting them, all of those boxes were offloaded quickly, and I took a day trip in my husband’s pickup truck delivering socks to different homeless shelters in the Pittsburgh region. After that, I just kept expanding donations and continued to distribute them throughout the Pittsburgh region.” 

Since 2023, Frantz has delivered over 15,000 pairs of socks to the Pittsburgh community. 

While she continues to make impressive strides with her efforts, Frantz’s extensive work within the healthcare field has given her a deeper understanding of what her work can do for a community. 

“It is more than just delivering socks,” Frantz said. “I have gotten to see what things look like in the healthcare space. To see people come into the healthcare system with foot ulcers, or other people that are at a higher risk for injuries and wounds. Unfortunately, a lot of people who are experiencing those ailments are part of the unhoused population. People most of the time that are unhoused don’t have proper footwear and socks which place them at a higher risk to develop those wounds.”

 While she did not grow up a Beaver County resident, Frantz moved into the Pittsburgh region when she was 12 years old after immigrating from Colombia. 

After moving around Western Pennsylvania, she, her husband and three kids moved to the Beaver County area around six years ago after her husband started to work at the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Plant. 

While being involved with the community close to home along with volunteer work, she has also started a new position in the Beaver County area. 

“Recently I made an addition to my career working for the Gateway Rehab Center, and that was purposeful to give myself more experience in the behavioral health space,” Frantz said. “I have gotten a better understanding of people who have the most needs and continue to be able to give back. I work there once a week as a nurse at the Aliquippa facility, which is another part that I am giving to the community. Hopefully, some of the sock donations from the bigger organizations will touch the Beaver County community soon.”

By being nominated, Frantz will also receive a $10,000 donation from the NFL Foundation paid directly to the non-profit of her choice, which is Pittsburgh Mercy. 

Frantz will also be recognized at the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Week 17 game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Christmas Day. 

Though she won’t be able to be recognized in person at the game, Holmes Davis believes that her story can continue to push change in the community. 

“We are a city that helps each other to create the needs for people,” Holmes Davis said. “We are excited to be able to share her story with our fanbase and hopefully through her work, people in the community will feel inspired to do something in their community as well.”

As Frantz continues to help the community with her various endeavors, she hopes that the work that she did can show people that putting a small effort into helping a cause can go a long way. 

“It doesn’t take a lot of sacrifice to make a difference. We have been blessed with the ability to have a garage big enough and I am just one human being. If you take all the people that live in a five-mile region, you can do big things. People can make a lot of difference in the world by doing small things.”