COMMUNITY
JEWFRO
Three People I Want To Be
When I Grow Up This Week
ven though I've never taken to
yoga (the practice, not the pants;
I love the pants), I have learned
to notice when the light within
someone else honors the light
within me. Here are three
people who lit my fire this
week:
Wendy Hernandez is
16 years old, which makes
me older than two Wendy
Hernandezes. To be clear,
I have wanted to grow up
to be Wendy Hernandez
since she was 13 and I
was going on 30 and we
were painting a basement
bowling alley in South-
west Detroit.
Wendy climbed from
the basement bowling
alley to become the top-ranked stu-
dent at Western International High
School, then raised money online
to fund her IQ test
and Cranbrook ap-
plication fees. The
school offered her
admission and a
50 percent scholar-
ship.This might
have ended up like
a lottery ticket with
half the winning
Wendy
numbers
if Wendy's
Hernandez
mom hadn't insisted
they knock on the
door of LA SED (Latin Americans
for Social and Economic Develop-
ment) to ask for help. LA SED now
marshals the rest of the funds for
tuition, room and board.
Why board? Along a route to
Cranbrook much longer than
Livernois and windier than Wood-
ward, Wendy's dad died, her sister
turned 18 and moved out, and her
mom had a new baby. Wendy had
promised her dad that she would
become a doctor and make him a
new heart. That's still her plan —
she tried to explain but lost me at
"cell scaffolding"— and I have total
confidence in her to do this and vir-
tually anything else, even if she did
do yoga to satisfy Cranbrook's gym
requirement.
Ellen Cogen Lipton is Exhibit A in
the case against term limits. Brilliant,
tireless and principled, Ellen's tenure
in the House of Representatives
ended before it could really begin.
Maybe her most visible work in the
House was demanding transpar-
E
ency and accountability from the
Education Achievement Authority
(EAA), a statewide school system for
failing schools. Through Freedom
of Information Act requests funded
out of her own pocket,
Ellen uncovered gross mis-
management — including
unlawful, unethical dis-
crimination against special
education students.
Ellen came to speak to a
group of Repair the World
alternative spring break
volunteers and made
it clear that, term limits
notwithstanding, her work
is not yet done. It's bigger
than the EAA. Ellen de-
scribed public education
as the greatest democratic
institution we've ever created — its
politicization and monetization as
devastating for young people and
communities.
Rather than addressing the
systemic poverty at the heart of the
achievement gap, time-bound state
legislators from gerrymandered
districts bend to private interests
and their lobbyists. Ellen is working
to restore democracy to educa-
tion in Detroit, to increase college
matriculation through mentoring in
Hazel Park and to be present for two
teenage children who had to share
their mom with Lansing for the last
six years.
Jason Williams looks like the
bouncer at a bar, if not the guy who
gets kicked out. But the co-founder
of Batch Brewing is very much at
home behind the bar of Detroit's
first "nano brewery" at 1400 Por-
ter St. in Corktown. Before long,
our conversation moved from the
Obscure Reference, an Imperial
Stout made with Madagascar vanilla
beans, to Jason's studious 19-year-
old daughter.
And then to the fact that, growing
up in Southwest Detroit, eighteen of
his friends had been killed in gang
violence before he was her age.
And, as a result, his hopes of getting
kids off the streets by sending them
to camp and having gang tattoos re-
moved through the Detroit Hispanic
Development Corporation. And his
plans to scale these philanthropic
efforts through a Feel Good Tap at
Batch Brewing and elsewhere, with
proceeds going to a variety of good
causes.
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RED THREAD I April 2015 45