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John Hardwick
Hillel Head of School
Steve Freedman
Moving Day At Hillel
Two schools in need get furniture
donation thanks to school renovation.
Vivian Henoch | Special to the Jewish News
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S
ome things are just meant to
be.
Thanks to the newest phase
of renovation at Hillel Day School,
Yeshivat Darchei Torah in Southfield and
Detroit Community Schools, a charter
school on Detroit’s West Side, have both
received donations of classroom furni-
ture.
Too numerous to inventory, Hillel’s
surplus of school items, pulled out of
the classrooms under reconstruction,
included 220 student desks and chairs,
10 teacher desks, dozens of bookcases
and shelves, “tons” of cubbies, lockers,
white boards and books no longer in use,
all in good condition.
With FOX2 News on hand to pick up
the story on moving day (May 31), Head
of School Steve Freedman said, “This is
all good stuff, and there are children in
Detroit and in our community who are
entitled to benefit from the materials we
are no longer using. We feel lucky that
we are able to help with a significant
donation of items to be divided between
the two schools.”
Hillel’s renovation is slated for
completion by the start of the school
year in September. Funded through
transformative gifts of the William and
Audrey Farber Family and the William
Davidson Foundation, the plan calls for
new construction of both wings of the
K-2 and 3-6 classrooms, which will now
be conceived as flexible “learning com-
munities.” These spaces will be designed
to foster creativity, collaboration, critical
thinking and project-based exploration
and discovery.
The partnership between Hillel and
the Detroit charter school demonstrates
the values of a community pooling
resources — with a little help from two
sisters, Elissa Sternberg, the school social
worker at Hillel, and Caryn Loughlin,
a third-grade teacher at Detroit
Community Schools.
“We had good furniture to donate,”
Sternberg said. “When I learned from
my sister that many of the students in
her school were just making do with bro-
ken desks and chairs, we arranged the
match and called the school to come out
and take what they needed.”
Wendy Senkbil, K-8 principal at
Detroit Community Schools, said, “Just
getting the call from Hillel was a bless-
ing.”
She explained that the students them-
selves have been involved in building
bookshelves and other furniture for the
classroom as a temporary measure for
replacing chipped and outdated items.
“This is awesome,” she said. “Our kids
will really appreciate just sitting on chairs
again and having what they need to be
successful in the classroom.”
Reflecting on Hillel’s new phase of
development, Freedman said, “Through
the awesome generosity of the Farber
family and the Davidson Foundation,
we have been able to create incredible
opportunities to provide our children the
education they need for this century. As
a leader today, we want to be part of the
change in our city as well.
“Many Hillel graduates and their par-
ents are working Downtown — contrib-
uting their talents and energy toward the
transformation of our city. We want to be
a part of that.”
*
Vivian Henoch is editor of Federation’s
myjewishdetroit.org, where this story first
appeared.
2040370
18 July 21 • 2016