{"id":18291,"date":"2016-11-23T17:54:44","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T17:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/?p=18291"},"modified":"2016-11-23T17:54:44","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T17:54:44","slug":"challenge-detroit-year-5-kickoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/challenge-detroit-year-5-kickoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenge Detroit Year 5 Kickoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

On\u00a0November 10th, 2016 Challenge Detroit celebrated it\u2019s 5 year anniversary at the Detroit Athletic Club downtown…which is just breathtakingly beautiful, by the way. The Challenge Detroit leadership team, current fellows, alumni fellows, supporters and host company representatives were all in attendance for a night to remember.<\/p>\n

\"img_0097\"<\/p>\n

Honestly the week that this event fell on was a very busy one. It was the week of the elections (sigh) as well as our challenge #2 kick off. So I wasn\u2019t 100% sold on the idea of yet another event being squeezed into an already jam-packed week. However, it was a wonderful time and it really reminded me of how thankful I am to be a part of such an organization. I had a conversation with one of the co-founders and he\u00a0told me more about the\u00a0inception of the program, how there were many doubters and how proud he is to see the other fellows and I embody exactly what Challenge Detroit stands for.\"img_0099\"<\/p>\n

The event caused me to reflect on everything Challenge Detroit means to me and how grateful I was to stumble across it on an idealist.org job posting list. Everything about it was perfect for me. If I could have crafted the perfect fellowship for myself, it would\u2019ve been Challenge Detroit. It placed a big emphasis on social media and videography; perfect! I had already created a Youtube platform discussing my experiences living in cities in the U.S and abroad. It focused on community development projects and working with non profits; awesome! I have a degree in Community Health and Urban Development and was eager to start using it.<\/p>\n

Also, during the time I found the fellowship I was teaching English in South Korea, but didn\u2019t feel like I was following my purpose. I love Korea but signing on for a second year didn\u2019t correlate with my future goals and may not have been the right decision. So here I was in May, returning to the U.S earlier than planned, jobless, limited social network\u00a0and desperately looking for a place to finally settle after two years of feeling very unsettled. Once I got the news that I made it into Challenge Detroit, my worries vanished. I knew everything would start to fall into place, and it did. I automatically had 40 new friends, a place to finally call home and a job that I felt was aligned with my purpose.<\/p>\n

\"img_0098\"Everything is not easy\u00a0as a Challenge Detroit fellow and living in a city that has recently undergone major financial setbacks is not always perfect. But this is where I am supposed to be\u2026at this very moment. I am honored that Challenge Detroit believed in me, and thought I would be a good fit to join such an esteemed team of intelligent, innovative and creative folks. Challenge Detroit will always be a part of MY story and I am happy to always be a part of theirs. Congratulations to Challenge Detroit for 5 years of excellence!<\/p>\n

-Gabrial Taylor:<\/p>\n

Year 5 Challenge Detroit Fellow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On\u00a0November 10th, 2016 Challenge Detroit celebrated it\u2019s 5 year anniversary at the Detroit Athletic Club downtown…which is just breathtakingly beautiful, by the way. The Challenge Detroit leadership team, current fellows, alumni fellows, supporters and host company representatives were all in attendance for a night to remember. Honestly the week that this event fell on was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}