By Kirsten Buys DETROIT — Instead of sleeping in and breezing through summer vacation, dozens of Detroit-area kids are waking up early each day to beautify Detroit and help kids. Summer in the City, founded by friends Ben Falik, Michael Goldberg and Neil Greenberg in 2002, gathers kids daily from carpool sites in Farmington Hills, Bloomfield Hills, Troy and other locations in metro Detroit and brings them to one of two or three sites, where they will work with children, paint, plant gardens and more. The program, which began the week of June 16 and runs through Aug. 15, has averaged about 130 volunteers each day so far this summer and shows no signs of slowing down. Anyone 14 and older is welcome to participate. All they have to do is be at one of the carpool sites by about 8:45 a.m. They will be returned there in the afternoon, usually around 2 p.m. “I really like that you don’t have to have a set schedule — I can just come when I can,” said Dana Fenster, 16, of Bloomfield Hills. “I really like working with kids, and I think it’s important that they have something to do in the summer.” Fenster spent the day June 27 working with students at Glazer Elementary School in Detroit. Others took a group of elementary school kids on a field trip to Belle Isle, and another group focused on painting a mural over graffiti. “It’s a way to do graffiti abatement in a different way,” Goldberg said. “If you just paint over graffiti with a solid color, it’s likely to get tagged again, but if you do a picture, it’s less likely to get painted over.” Some weeks the group devotes time to cleaning up parks, and even has made brick benches out of materials from past demolition projects. “We’re not just clearing out, but we’re putting something more permanent in,” Goldberg said. That effort has caused a chain reaction near Ed Williams’ Detroit home. He stopped by the group’s weekly Friday barbeque on Warren Avenue to let organizers know the park they cleaned up the week before made others in his neighborhood take notice. “The greatest thing about it is when they saw those kids coming out and doing it, I saw people in the neighborhood picking up trash and keeping the neighborhood clean,” Williams said. “It inspired them to take care of the neighborhood on their own.” When kids show up to volunteer, they don’t know what they could be in for that day. First time volunteers get a Summer in the City T-shirt and water bottle. Once they volunteer for 20 hours, they get to place their handprint on the organization’s yellow van. While part of the reason 16-year-old Paul Zecharia participates is to earn required volunteer hours for North Farmington High School, he hopes others will check out the program. “I really like meeting new people, and it’s a lot of fun, really,” Zecharia said. “Come do it. You won’t regret it.” Falik, the organization’s executive director, said the program is made possible through private donations, big and small. All donations — from a case of sodas for the Friday cookout to monetary donations — are tax deductible. “Even $50 goes a long way,” he said. “For $50, we can haul away a bunch of debris. For $10, we can feed our elementary school friends for a week.” Harsha Hebbale, 17, a recent graduate of Troy Athens High School, volunteered with friend Deborah Tien, 18, for the first time June 27, and is pretty sure he’ll be back. “It was cool — I’ve never painted a wall of a big building before,” Hebbale said. “You just come help out and everything’s taken care of for you. I think it’s awesome.” For more information on Summer in the City, visit www.sitc-det. org or call (248) 790-1000. You can reach Staff Writer Kirsten Buys at kbuys@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1030. |
