 JULY 16 • 2020 | 33

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his summer a coalition 
of Jewish agencies and 
foundations will con-
nect Jewish young adults with 
service and social and racial 
justice volunteer projects 
through a campaign called 
Serve the Moment. The pro-
gram was created in response 
to the call for relief from the 
coronavirus pandemic, as 
well as the racial injustice 
that has long impacted Black 
Americans across the country. 
Local efforts in Detroit will be 
facilitated by Repair the World 
Detroit, which is also moving 
to its new space at the Durfee 
Innovation Society (housed in 
the former Durfee Elementary 
School building) in July. 
Running in Detroit from July 
8-Aug. 7, Serve the Moment 
was created by the newly 
formed Jewish Service Alliance. 
The initiative mobilizes tens 
of thousands in virtual volun-
teering, in-person service and 
national service campaigns 
around specific issues during 
the year. Jordan Fruchtman, 
senior director of the Jewish 

Service Alliance, said the pan-
demic caused Repair the World 
to suddenly pivot its efforts. 
As part of the Jewish Service 
Alliance, the organization 
received significant funding to 
fulfill the newly formed mis-
sion of responding to needs 
caused by COVID-19 and 
social injustices. 
“Repair the World has 
created a response that is spe-
cifically tied to the effects of 
coronavirus,” said Fruchtman, 
who is based in California and 
seven years ago helped estab-
lish Detroit’
s Moishe House. 
“Everything we are doing in 
this program will have an 
underlying thread of address-
ing racial injustice. Our Corps 
members will serve in four 
areas: food insecurity, educa-
tion, employment and mental 
health resources.”
Serve is also in partnership 
with local Jewish organiza-
tions that include the Jewish 
Federation of Metropolitan 
Detroit as well as the Charles 
and Lynn Schusterman Family 
Foundation, the Jim Joseph 

Foundation and Maimonides 
Fund through the Jewish 
Community Response and 
Impact Fund.
Sarah Allyn, executive 
director of Repair the World 
Detroit, said she 
is simultaneously 
in the process of 
filling 10 Corps 
positions, hiring 
a coordinator to 
oversee them and 
coordinating with 
nonprofit organizations in 
Detroit to evaluate and assess 
where the need is the greatest. 
Allyn said the timing of 
Serve’
s launch had a lot to do 
with how national and local 
agencies needed to take the 
time to process how the pan-
demic affected their organiza-
tions, the communities they 
serve and the disruptions it 
caused in the summer plans of 
Jewish young adults. 
“In those first few weeks of 
the pandemic, we were all on 
survival mode,” Allyn said. 
“We needed time to evaluate 
and assess the availability of 

young adults whose original 
summer plans (of working as 
summer interns, Jewish camp 
counselors or traveling to 
Israel) were disrupted. Now, 
we are actually riding this 
bicycle as we build it.”
Allyn said Corps members 
will volunteer in a mixture of 
in-person and online capacities. 
Detroit will hire 10 Corps 
members who will serve 32 
hours a week, including taking 
Friday to participate in Jewish 
and social justice learning. 
Corps members will receive a 
$500 stipend for the program. 
Molly Lippitt, 22, of 
Bloomfield Hills has been 
selected as one 
of the first Corps 
volunteers to serve 
in Detroit. She 
recently earned 
her master’
s 
degree in educa-
tion in Spain and 
was planning on teaching there 
before the pandemic hit. As the 
daughter of Repair the World 
board member Robb Lippitt, 
she said she is excited to be 
following in the footsteps of the 
work her father began as well 
as carrying out Jewish values 
of tikkun olam she learned as 
a teen through BBYO and at 
Temple Shir Shalom. 
“I am very excited to volun-
teer through an organization 
that my family has been long 
involved with,
” Lippitt said. 
“The Jewish values I have 
learned urge us to help out the 
wider community any way we 
can. As Jews, we know histor-
ically what it has been like to 
face oppression. I am looking 
forward to working as a Corps 
member with Repair the World 
this summer to work toward 
rectifying the systematic racism 
that has long existed in our 
country.
” 

STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER 

COURTESY OF JEWISH SERVICE ALLIANCE

Jews in the D
Jews
t e

jews and racial justice

 Serve
the Moment

New program connects Jewish young adults with 
social and racial justice volunteer projects.

Sarah Allyn

Molly
Lippitt

