Metro
ON THE COVER
Felicia Andersson and Hannah Stone, both 16 and from Birmingham, place bottle caps in the wet cement.
Mike Goldberg puts in long days.
Summer In The City
A growing group of young volunteers is changing lives, including their own.
Alan Hitsky
Associate Editor
0
n a Friday last month, two 20-
something corporate types — a
chief executive officer and his
chief operating officer — were doing their
usual thing.
At 5:45 a.m., they were up on ladders,
tracing a mural on a Gratiot Avenue store-
front near Detroit's Eastern Market.
The CEO, Ben Falik, 26, of Huntington
Woods, would leave the ladder for a down-
town office where he is a summer law
intern. The COO, Mike Goldberg, 26, of
Bloomfield Hills, would complete a week of
17- to18-hour days by hosting an outdoor
barbecue for 130 high school and college
students completing their first week of this
year's Summer in the City program.
Before the barbecue, in a refurbished
pocket park on the corner of Gratiot and
Jos. Campau, some of the volunteers had
taken 50 students from Detroit's Glazer
Elementary School to the Detroit Science
Center. Other volunteers painted two
murals sketched by Falik and Goldberg
on the bricked up storefront and the adja-
cent carwash near Gratiot and Chene. Still
others, joined by members of the Gratiot-
McDougall United Corp., picked up trash,
cut down weeds, built and decorated a
low cement berm adjacent to the Gratiot
sidewalk and prepared the barbecue at the
pocket park.
A few even converted a Summer in the
City (SITC) van from navy blue to sky blue.
It was close to a typical day for SITC.
Seven summers ago, SITC was started by
three close friends — Falik, Goldberg and
Neil Greenberg — who had graduated from
Bloomfield Hills Andover and Birmingham
Groves high schools two years before. From
a weeklong program with 12 volunteers, it
has evolved into a nine-week, $80,000 proj-
ect that is averaging better than 120 volun-
teers a day, four days a week this summer.
The volunteers meet at five suburban
and two Detroit locations at 9 a.m., Tuesday
through Friday, to be carpooled to SITC's
child enrichment or work sites in the city.
They usually return to their cars by 2 p.m.
On Fridays, the weekly barbecue brings
them together after a morning of volunteer-
ing.
High school students can earn communi-
ty service credit through the program. And
it's almost painless: Volunteers participate
as frequently or infrequently as they want.
All they need to do is show up at a carpool
site — there's no advance signup.
Partnerships
The projects are always ongoing and
always changing, Goldberg said. With the
increasing numbers of volunteers, SITC can
complete projects more quickly than in the
past and move rapidly to additional sites.
However, the group also continues enhanc-
ing previous projects.
For example, at the end of the 2006 sum-
mer, SITC volunteers completed a mural on
Woodbridge street. Last year, they added to
it, and this year they are building benches
at the site from reclaimed brick.
Similar benches at the Gratiot-Jos.
Campau corner have decorative designs on
top, including Detroit Tigers logos, made
from new bottle caps pressed into concrete.
"We never want to have too many vol-
unteers at one project:' Goldberg said. "Our
motto is: fun, flexible and fulfilling. We
don't want anyone standing around and
saying, `I don't have anything to do.' On any
given day, we can have five different proj-
ects going at one time'
SITC is a success on all fronts. The
organization partners with 15 communal
groups, coming up with projects that best
serve the neighborhoods and SITC's vol-
unteers. It is funded through grants and
donations.
At the end of the first week this summer,
volunteers at the Gratiot-Jos. Campau site
were doing a lot of cleanup and having a lot
of fun.
Sisters Jenna and Stephanie Israelson
were excited about SITC."I've never done
community service before:' said Jenna, 19,
a student at Oakland Community College.
"I'm really looking forward to it." The sis-
ters were making bottle-cap designs on
the new sidewalk berm. Stephanie, 17, will
be a senior at Walled Lake Northern High
School in the fall.
Up to their elbows while mixing cement
with their hands were two Detroit Cass
Technical High School seniors, Jasmine
Uduma, 16, and Rhonda Chungag, 17. Said
Jasmine about SITC, "There is definitely
something different every day:'
Ian Mular and Stephanie Wald are both
15 and students at North Farmington High
School. Both were paired with students in
grades K-5 at Glazer Elementary. "I like to
help out people,' Ian said.
Stephanie could only volunteer for the
first two weeks because she is participat-
ing in Federation's Teen Mission to Israel.
During the last week before the trip, she
planned to volunteer at least two or three
more times. The kids are so adorable and
fun to be around:'
Youth Enrichment
When they reach the carpool sites, the vol-
Summer In The City on page A14
July 10 • 2008
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