6 | DECEMBER 5 • 2019 guest column Coming Home to Something New Views 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