For my Impact Project I partnered with Rocket Fiber and the Downtown Youth Boxing Gym to pilot a class for boxing gym students centered around internet technology fundamentals. The mission of the class was a simple question: “How do we ignite a passion for technology amongst Detroit’s youth?”
In April, we brought on a fellow Fellow, […]
There’s a saying….or maybe it’s just me who says it….that Detroit is on the way to and from nowhere to nowhere. Actually all of Michigan is kind of that way. I suppose if you were in Chicago and decided you needed to drive to Toronto, then maybe Detroit is on the way, but chances are […]
I live just over the eastern border of Detroit, in the Cabbage Patch section of Grosse Pointe Park. I would say my neighborhood fits the description of the fabled “20 Minute Neighborhood” that many Detroit planning officials hope to create within the city. I can walk to shops, a brewery, restaurants, a few bars, a […]
Most Fellows I talk to on a regular basis look forward to Fridays. Honestly, most people I know look forward to Fridays, but for Challenge Fellows, and me personally, Fridays represent a shift in the week from working on whatever projects kept me busy at my host company since Monday, toward whatever the current challenge […]
Basic Background
Detroit drivers pay some of the highest car insurance premiums in the nation. Average yearly premiums are $2,550 across Michigan. The average for the nation is $907 (Mosley 2015). Residents of Detroit often pay considerably more than the state average for comparable coverage ($2,500-$5,000), and even experience substantially higher rates than the suburbs immediately […]
Anyone who has heard the Journey song “Don’t Stop Believing” has heard the line: “Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit.”
As someone who isn’t from Detroit and who wasn’t too familiar with the city before moving here, I just always took this line at face value. Turns out there is no South […]
On Tuesday I volunteered through Rock Ventures with the Wayne County Treasurer’s Office at their Show Cause Hearings for households facing foreclosure due to non-payment or non-compliance with their 2014 property taxes. Anyone familiar with taxes and Detroit knows that especially a few years ago, home values and their respective property taxes were severely misaligned. […]
Last Friday night, Everett and I made our way to SW Detroit to a tiny music venue called El Club. We were there to see a metal band from the Pacific Northwest named Red Fang. It was loud. There was a lot of long hair and beards and beer and dudes over 250 pounds. Pretty […]
In the three months I’ve been here in Detroit, music has colored every step of the journey. As mentioned in my previous posts, it’s been a whirlwind of emotions, spinning through highs, lows, and everything in between. There’s only one form of expression that can capture the full spectrum of human emotion in my opinion […]
“Change is the only constant.” This quote is often attributed to an ancient Greek philosopher because that’s who you give credit to when you have no idea where something came from. I don’t know who actually said it first, but it pretty succinctly sums up the Challenge Detroit experience so far.
As I sat down to […]
