jews d
in
the
Leading By
Example
Repair the World’s new executive
director reflects on her inaugural year.
ROBIN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Y
“It’s amazing,” she says. “I get to
ou might find her jogging
through Detroit’s Woodbridge connect the Jewish community that
I love to a city that I love and work
neighborhood or working
that I feel so strongly about.”
in a greenhouse or helping to bury
old prayer books in a sacred space
for Jewish texts. But you’ll most
SPRINGING INTO SERVICE
likely find Sarah Allyn, 30, of Detroit This year, Repair the World held
at Repair the World’s cool head-
its first annual Spring into Service
quarters on Bagley, where she just
weekend mobilizing 175 volun-
wrapped her first year as executive
teers to participate in six service
director of the Jewish nonprofit
events with different partner
focused on service-learning and vol- organizations. Georgia Street
unteering.
Community Collective was one of
“Service only for the sake of ser-
them. Volunteers helped to pre-
vice is not our mission,”
pare an orchard and garden
TOP LEFT:
Allyn says. “We recruit
for planting season in the
Volunteers clean
volunteers from the Jewish
neighborhood near Harper
up B’nai David
community and bring them
and Gratiot. The garden now
Cemetery.
to Detroit to work along-
grows in a lot where trash
TOP RIGHT:
side local community part- Volunteers bury once littered the ground. The
ners. Our mission is to set
outdated sacred green space serves as a com-
context and build bridges
munity gathering place and a
texts.
between the Jewish com-
source for healthy food.
munity and the communities we
“I chose to participate in Spring
serve with a focus on food justice
into Service because a greener
and education justice.”
Detroit is a better Detroit,” says
Allyn, a University of Michigan
Wayne State University student
graduate who grew up in
Emily Rosenberg, who was among
Huntington Woods, took on the
the volunteers. “I think volunteer
leadership role at Repair the World
work helps an individual grow into
in June 2017 following four years
a more well-rounded person. To me,
as director of education at Temple
tikkun olam (repairing the world) is
Shir Shalom in West Bloomfield.
how I embrace being Jewish.”
Before that, she lived in Chicago
Participants also worked with
and worked with Teach for America
first-graders at another site, reading
as an early childhood educator. She
books, playing games and visiting a
says “family and the emerging food
mobile food pantry. Other projects
scene in Detroit” brought her home. included carrying old prayer books
The opportunity to make an impor-
from the Isaac Agree Downtown
tant difference keeps her rooted in
Synagogue to a storage room at
the city.
B’nai David Cemetery and con-
continued on page 26
24
August 2 • 2018
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