6 | DECEMBER 5 • 2019
guest column
Coming Home to Something New
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Kendra
I
knew I would return to Michigan at
some point after college, though I did
not expect it to happen so soon. During
my junior year at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, I participated in
an alternative spring break trip with Repair
the World in Brooklyn. As soon as I learned
that Repair had a program in Detroit, I
knew that this could be a way for me to
come home and do meaningful work in the
Jewish community.
Much of my time as a Repair the World
Detroit Fellow is spent with my partner
organization, Detroit Jews for Justice
(DJJ), and developing our youth program,
PeerCorps Detroit, alongside my supervisor.
In working with both DJJ and PeerCorps, I
have shifted my understanding of service.
As an organization working to mobilize
the Jewish community in Metro Detroit for
racial and economic justice, service takes
the form of making the personal politi-
cal — listening to people’
s stories, drawing
connections and zooming out to see where
power needs to shift so that our needs and
the needs of our neighbors are met fairly
and with the dignity we all deserve.
In PeerCorps, I am able to facilitate
learning experiences where our young com-
munity members learn to see themselves as
part of something larger.
Finding connections between my Jewish
life in North Carolina and my work here
in Detroit has been an exciting experience.
It was in North Carolina that I began to
get involved in the Jewish community.
With small Jewish communities scattered
throughout the South, I learned quickly
what intentional community looks like, and
that everyone plays a vital role in keeping
things going. Because of the effort it takes to
maintain and grow this kind of community,
I played a number of roles — teacher, ritual
leader, organizer, host, etc.
And while suburban Metro Detroit has a
large and highly resourced Jewish commu-
nity, I have found a similar energy around
co-creation and organic community devel-
opment within Jewish Detroit. The skills,
commitments and relationships I built in
my small Southern Jewish community have
come in handy, albeit in slightly different
ways, in my work as a Detroit Repair Fellow
and as a member of this community.
Coming to Detroit for the Fellowship has
been a homecoming in many ways, but hav-
ing not been involved in the Jewish com-
munity here in my childhood, it has been a
new and welcome experience to learn about
the Metro Detroit Jewish community as an
adult. As someone who considers themself
a Midwestern Southerner and has a deep
affinity and connection for both regions,
I am not sure where I will end up in the
long run; but, for now, I am grateful to
be surrounded by old friends, family and
Michigan’
s beautiful lakes.
Ben
E
very Monday, I have the pleasure
and privilege of spending my day
at Coleman A. Young Elementary
School (CAY) in northwest Detroit. It’
s a
beautiful place: a mural of black authors,
artists and freedom fighters covers the
first-floor hallway. There’
s a tiny garden
on raised beds behind the gym. And,
of course, there are the students I get to
spend time with each week. Even when I
walk in the door exhausted, their joy and
excitement just to be at school leave me
grinning by the time I head back into the
chilly Michigan evening.
When people ask, I usually describe
what I do there as “volunteering,” both
as a literacy tutor and helping to run the
afterschool program. And it is true; that is
technically my role. But this always feels a
bit simplistic and detached from the real
reason my time there feels meaningful. In
just a few months at CAY, I have learned
the real value of this work is in the rela-
tionships I have built — with the students
I have mentored, with the parents whose
KENDRA WATKINS AND BEN RATNER
Ben at Coleman A. Young Elementary School
Kendra and the folks at Detroit Jews for Justice
Finding connections
between my Jewish life
in North Carolina and
my work here in Detroit
has been an exciting
experience.
— KENDRA WATKINS
continued on page 10