This page,
clockwise from right:
The Crew: (back row)
Dennis Blender and
Gag Eubanks of West
Bloomfield. (front row)
Robert 12, Marla, and
Beth Alter, 15, of
Southfield; Noah, 8,
Gayle, and Emily
Eubanks, 13, of West
Bloomfiea Katie, 11,
and Anita Blender of West
Bloomfield line up to help
Ben Goldner (seated) of
Oak Park.
Kathy and Harvey Fink
bag leaves during the
fill fix-up program.
Beth Alter cleans the
bushes in front.
Robert Alter works on
the front porch.
•
Illiir e went there to help,"
said Dave Hurwitz, a
19-year-old volunteer
from Alpha Epsilon Pi .
Fraternity at Michigan State
University. "But it didn't seem to
matter how well we did. The man just
kept thanking us for being there. He
and his wife really just wanted to
talk."
Hurwitz was one of 25 AEPi volun-
teers who turned out two Sundays ago
armed with sponges and mops to help
metro Detroit's elderly and disabled
11/13
1998
14 Detroit Jewish News
winterize their homes before the cold
sets in. The project, the Jewish Family
Service's Fall Fix Up, seemed a natural
for the fraternity's first philanthropic
project in a long time.
"Most of the guys in our fraternity
had grandparents who were Holocaust
survivors," said Jeff Gajda, the frater-
nity's volunteer coordinator. "So when
we thought about a project where we
cottld give to our community, we nat-
urally thought of the Jewish elderly
population."
"After spending the day with that
older couple at their house in
Southfield," said Hurwitz, "I felt the
sadness of being old and alone. Now I
can't help hoping that when I'm older
someone is willing to spend the time
with me."
The 170 volunteers — more than
twice as many as turned out last year
for the project's birth — tackled clean-
up projects in 30 homes across Oak
Park, Southfield and Detroit. And
inside each home the story of mutual
appreciation was much the same.
Elaine Wolf admired the army of
volunteers who'd come to winterize
windows, vacuum under the couch
and scrub the windows and bathrooms
of her Oak Park home. "My husband
and I used to do all the work our-
selves," she said, "but I've had a kid-
ney replacement and a triple bypass,
and I'm a diabetic. My husband, Sy,
had a stroke. And you know with all
this, you slow down. To clean up and
winterize, it's expensive."
"When they left last year," said Sy,
"it was so clean in here, it looked like
a brand new house."