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Nick Bringardner and Ben Falik enjoy the view from
the porch of the house.
Top Row: Brad Snider, Detroit; Jen Rusciano, Detroit; Mike Dunn, Philadelphia. Middle Row: Nick Bringardner,
SITC crew members Brad Snider and Andrew Sokoly
Farmington Hills; Abby Hunter, Northville; Elise Kulik, Ann Arbor; Caitlin Welsh, Grosse Pointe. Bottom Row: Will
move boxes to the truck at the old Burton elementary
McDowell, Detroit; Andrew Sokoly, Troy; Ben Falik, Huntington Woods.
school as Elise Kulik and Jen Rusciano assist.
Grassroots charity Summer in the City gets an HQ thanks to the Jewish Fund.
Hannah Posen
Jewish News Intern
0
n Sunday, Aug. 21, Summer in the City (SITC)
moved into its new house at the corner of Clark
Street and Vernor Highway in southwest Detroit.
SITC is a grassroots organization that recently finished
its 10th summer of service in Detroit, cleaning up parks,
painting murals and working to build strong neighbor-
hoods.
"Like many grassroots endeavors, Summer in the City
was conceived at a kitchen table, nurtured in basements,
housed in garages and operated out of coffee shops:' said
Ben Falik, co-founder of the program and columnist for
JN's sister publication Red Thread.
"Summer remains our 'season of service, but it now
takes a year-round effort — recruiting, capacity build-
ing, project planning and fundraising — to make each
summer bigger and better than the last."
After nearly a year of searching, SITC came across
this house, which it got for a bargain at a short sale.
SITC received $25,000 from the Jewish Fund a year ago
and decided that the best way for the money to have the
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September 1 • 2011
maximum positive, lasting impact was to have a head-
quarters. The grant was followed by donations from the
Jewish Women's Foundation, the Edward C. and Linda
Dresner Levy Foundation, Davis Drugs, Earvin "Magic"
Johnson, individual SITC patrons and, most recently,
$7,000 from Quicken Loans.
The 2,400-square-foot house has five bedrooms and
room for five core leaders of SITC to live there year-
round. In its inaugural year, four tenants will live in the
house, Will McDowell, 22, Samantha Nawrocki, 22, Brad
Snider, 23 and Jen Rusciano, 23, all SITC board members
and project leaders.
"We are cultivating new groups of leaders who have
already materialized. We needed that physical and con-
ceptual space for them to reach their full potential," Falik
said. "All our tenants have internalized what SITC is and
have impacted it and built it to where it is now. Each of
them will be doing other relevant work in Detroit and
will put their own sweat equity into running the organi-
zation during the yen"
The house will serve as the residential leadership pro-
gram for SITC as well as a headquarters for SITC opera-
tions. In one of Detroit's most dynamic neighborhoods,
the house will also be a space for community meetings,
reflection and dialogue programming, administrative
work for SITC and a place to house out-of-town volun-
teers. SITC will also use the basement and shed as stor-
age for their supplies, which they recently took out of a
classroom at the old Burton elementary school on Cass
Avenue in Detroit.
With SITC's new house comes the hope that it will be
able to administer year-round service projects in Detroit.
In the past, SITC has had to turn down service oppor-
tunities, but now it will be able to grow its school-based
service programs in an effort to create partnerships and
service projects that will continue into summer.
As SITC moves into the house, members are still work-
ing on finalizing funding and furnishing it. They are
committed to not tapping into program funding for the
house and are looking for monetary and in-kind dona-
tions. Their wish list includes things like a mezuzah,
kitchenware, beds, lawn furniture, a washer and dryer,
an upright piano and a laptop computer among other
things.
For more information on the SITC headquarters go to
www.summerinthecity.com/hq.