metro » 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 Send your love. Support our community. With new tribute cards from Jewish Family Service! Birthdays. Holidays. Any day. Show your loved ones you’re thinking of them with one of our new tribute cards. Sending them is simple—you customize the message, we’ll mail the cards! All proceeds go toward helping community members in need. Order yours today at www.jfsdetroit.org or contact Jenny Kabert at 248-592-2339 or jkabert@jfsdetroit.org. 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