Our first Challenge Blog will be introduced in three parts. To read more on Challenge Detroit, visit our website.

As I started to write this blog, I had the chance to sit down with Challenge Detroit Program Director Shelley Danner. We spoke about Challenge Detroit’s five-year milestone mark this year, and I asked Shelley if she had noticed any changes in the kinds of individuals Challenge Detroit has accepted since its first year.

“We are looking for individuals that embody all of the core values of Challenge Detroit – those that has the drive, the courage, the ability, that service to the community, has that humility. We attract really talented individuals who have already accomplished a lot and want to accomplish more. There hasn’t really been a huge change in that.“

I realized that I was a part of the simplicity of a successful design – one that motivates and invigorates its target audience, offering a piece of authentic sense of mission. That is: if you build it, they will come.

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Walking into New Center’s 440 Burroughs, commonly known as Tech Town, on any given Friday morning this year, you might notice a little chalk sign sitting next to the Front Desk. Updated daily, the sign greets its customers with a mantra of the day – a daily dose of coffee shop inspiration. Today, I walk in and the sign reads, “Harbor hope. Be motivated… live inspired”.

I’ve just finished my own Friday commute – I walk in and mount my bike on a rack near the door as I begin to hear the buzz of morning conversation. Two fellow Fellows walk past – one works at Rock Ventures, the other, Sachse Construction. Then comes another group, this time three – a GM engineer, a Slow Roll project coordinator, and a Marketing Associates associate.  Then yet another two fellows from Ecoworks and Clark Hill. More young 20-30 somethings, all early career professionals, continue to flock in for the morning reverie – coffee, and, if lucky, they come with baked goods from local favorite Avalon Bakery in-hand to share. We quietly chat in different corners of the large open space that is JUNCTION 440 – Tech Town’s collaborative first floor workspace. Slowly, the room grows, expands. The clock hits 9AM. Silence slices through this morning’s steadily rising swell as the mood shifts and focus sets. We begin our Challenge Friday.

Junction 440, a Collaborative Detroit Workspace

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Recently, I posed a simple question to my fellow Fellows – “Why Choose Challenge Detroit”?

“What other job provides you an opportunity to engage with multiple nonprofits in  meaningful ways to create a lasting impact on Detroit?”

“There are larger conversations of urbanism, design, and Detroit that I’d like to be a part of… Challenge [Detroit] provides an incredible networking opportunity that can open doors to have those dialogues. I think it’s valuable to be able to speak both of those languages (that of the design world and of community members) and this is an avenue to do that.”

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Challenge Detroit’s fifth year represents a right of passage for nonprofits. A mark of legitimacy and a sense of permanence bolstered by the ever-growing entrepreneurial space in Detroit’s burgeoning marketplace. Challenge Detroit’s uniqueness lies not just in its survival – but each year’s’ intensified momentum and the rapidly expanding alumni network accompanying it.  “Incremental impact, learning by doing, giving, leading, learning, testing, empathy, sacrifice, service” are all values that connect Alumni Fellows throughout the Metro Detroit area as they have left the program and moved on to future endeavors, points out Executive Director Deirdre Greene Groves.

Unprompted, she also points out the sheer variety, noting that, “It’s awesome to have an architect and an urban planner and a doctor and an engineer at the table together […] learning about what’s happening in our community and contributing to making that better”.

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“I knew I wanted to be somewhere I could join a community that was bigger and greater than myself – that I could meet people with heart, integrity, and a work ethic second to none. I don’t think I could find that anywhere else like I find it in Detroit.”

We come for reasons as multifaceted as our professional and personal backgrounds. A sense of service. A sense of community. A desire to grow – personally and professionally, manifesting itself as being a part of something “greater than [our]selves”. In Challenge Detroit’s first five years, Shelley pointed out that Challenge Detroit Fellows are “ [individuals who] want to be a part of their community. They want to give back. They want to be innovative. They want to be entrepreneurial.”

So, this is Year Five. We want to be a part of the community – to give back, innovate, and be entrepreneurial. We’ve come to approach Detroit from the seat of empathy – to live, work, give, play, and lead in a city that we are all at different stages of calling “home”.

This blog was written by Peter Walle, a Year 5 Challenge Fellow at Edward C. Levy, grew up in Troy MI and aspires to be a Detroiter. To read more of his thoughts on Detroit, check out his Blog here.