DETROIT
JEWISH NEW S

JN

Right: Zack Chutz of Berkley

and Josh Loney of West

Bloomfield draw raffle tickets

out of a guitar.

Far right: Matt Cassar of

A Plaid Index plays guitar.

Below: Ari Teitel, 16, of Orchard

Lake performs with the band

The Jam Society.

bandin g
together!

teen bands provide a night of great
music to benefit Summer in the City.

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by Joanna Loney

ikkun olam, or repairing the
world. Most of us in the Jew-
ish community are familiar
with this phrase, but how often do
we take it literally? How often do
we take the physical pieces of our
broken environment and rebuild
them into something beautiful?
At Summer in the City (SITC),
that's what happens every summer
when suburban teens flock to Detroit
to plant gardens, paint murals, tutor
children and lay down one more step-
ping stone in the city's path to recov-
ery.
For the organization to continue
to thrive, it needs funding and volun-
teers gained through word of mouth.
A group of teens from Temple Israel
in West Bloomfield decided to give
SITC a hand by holding an event
called Banding Together, where local

teen bands gave a concert March 5 to
raise awareness and money for the or-
ganization.
The idea for Banding Together
was actually recycled from a previous
event of the same name that Temple
Israel put on in May 2009 to raise
money for two orphaned congregants.
Based on the success of that event,
Zack Chutz, Temple Israel's youth
program director, decided it was time
to give it another try.
Last December, a planning com-
mittee made up of teens Lizzie Gold-
man, Zoe Yedwab, Jack Iwrey, Bran-
don Klein, Alison Hacker, Justin
Zabel, Jarrod Goldman, Joan_na.Loney
and Jace Gittleman got together to be-
gin work on the project. To them, this
was a great opportunity to fuse their
passion for music with something else
they could feel strongly about.

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"I think Banding Together [was] a
perfect way to combine the creative
talents of teens and charity into one
great event," said Iwrey, who also per-
formed in the bands So Says Wilbur
and Temple Israel's Yom Sheni.
As music is such an integral part of
the Detroit scene, it made sense that
an organization benefiting Detroit
would be the group's charity selection
this year.
The concert also featured the pre-
miere performance of A Plaid Index,
veterans Live the Dash, soloist Matt
Rosner, headlining band and crowd-
pleasers The Jam Society, and Colby
Lane, whose guitarist Jace Gittleman
is the son of drummer Scott Gittleman
from the adult band Foster Brooks that
closed the evening.
In between bands, gift cards, iHome
stereos and a much-coveted iPad were

raffled off. By the end of the night, the
200 people who attended had helped
to raise more than $4,000 through ad-
missions, raffle tickets, merchandise
and the delicious concessions, which
had been generously donated by El-
len's Bakery, Tomatoes Apizza, Piz-
zeria Biga, Sushi Samurai, Mezza and
the Cappuccino Man.
For those who planned this event,
both goals were definitely met: We
raised money to benefit Summer in
the City, and we provided a night of
truly great music. [

Joanna Loney, 16, is a
sophomore at Bloom-
field Hills Andover
High School. She was a
member of the Banding
Together planning com-
mittee and a singer with
Yom Sheni.

teen2teen March 24.2011 TT1