If you had the opportunity to take part in a fellowship where you could give back and learn more about your hometown through working with various nonprofits, would you accept the challenge?

In the fall of 2019, I said, “yes” and applied to become a Challenge Detroit fellow. As a Detroit native, I learned from an early age how resilient my city is. I saw passionate people with dreams who didn’t take “no” for an answer by grinding passed their 9-to-5 to start their own businesses. I saw people constantly show up to support those businesses. It was this strong sense of community mixed with determination, resiliency, and pride that you can find in Detroit.

As a Challenge Detroit fellow, I’ve been able to see more and more of this by traveling to various neighborhoods and learning more about Detroit’s resilient history through attending tours by the Black Scroll Network and Detroit Experience Factory. What I have enjoyed most about this fellowship is that we aren’t only being exposed to various communities to learn, but we’re able to support initiatives to make an impact through various challenge projects.

So far, I’ve had the privilege of working with Detroit Public Schools Community District and the nonprofit arm of T.E.A. through Rebel Nell. Both of these projects have inspired me through their mission to serve. For DPSCD, we worked to amplify students’ voices by informing the district what they would like to see for a student empowerment conference. As a DPS alum, working with DPSCD felt very special because I saw my own reflection in the students we were serving. Working with T.E.A., we were able to help them rethink their Money Relationships workshop by proposing suggestions to make the program more effective. The past few months have been equally exciting and challenging, but I am so grateful for this opportunity to help make an impact in my hometown.

Stay tuned to read more about my experience as a Challenge Detroit fellow.

This blog post was contributed by:  Charnae Sanders. Be sure to follow all of our activity on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/challengedetroit/.