For our second challenge of the 2021-2022 program year, we were honored to partner with Marygrove Conservancy, a nonprofit organization with a mission to preserve the legacy of Marygrove College through equitable stewardship of a campus that exemplifies excellence in education, serving Northwest Detroit and the city overall. Eight teams of Fellows collaborated with the Marygrove team – led by COO Racheal Allen and Program Manager Turkessa Baldridge – along with community stakeholders over seven-weeks. Learn more from the perspective of each team!
A culture-bearer is any individual who works to enhance and elevate a culture within a community. When understanding community needs, it is imperative to center the perspective of the culture-bearer. Being involved with and making change in a community can only be done ethically and sustainably when community members are prioritized in the process. Accessible resources can be more effectively provided when the gap is bridged between providers and consumers.
Our prompt for this project was to create a way to display the businesses in the District 2 community and highlight ways for and the importance of connecting service providers. Our deliverables, created in partnership with Marygrove, will offer a platform for accessing services and tools to uplift business owner voices.
Understanding the value and insight of the culture-bearer is something our team will carry into our future community work. We were fortunate to work with the Marygrove Conservancy for a firsthand look at ethical and sustainable community development work in the Live6 community. The Marygrove Team, and their partners, see the value in storytelling and so do we. ***