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week 5: tenzin choeyang

6/30/2021

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Prompt: Please interview someone living and/or working in the social impact space in Detroit. Write a piece about them that you can share.

Would you please introduce yourself, including your current role and organization?

Alena Farooq is a young professional in the social impact space of Detroit. She is a current Associate at GreenLight Fund Detroit and one of the two primary program coordinators who Dono and I have the pleasure to work with and learn from this summer. Alena has a wide array of past experiences, including working in local NGOs, large corporations, volunteering opportunities, developing and coordinating education programs. In her interview, I learned that Alena’s initial upbringing was about 30 minutes outside of Detroit, with very little transportation compared to the city. She adds, her interaction with the city was really as an adult. Her work at the Urban Alliance, a national youth force that levels the playing field for young people in the workforce, equips them with the tools to overcome the systemic barriers that prevent equal access to economic opportunity. Alena was one of the people who helped launch the Detroit branch of Urban Alliance. After a year, her work was on impact investing social enterprise fundamentals applied to NGOs in finding mutually beneficial collaboration primarily for social good.

What does social innovation (and social impact) mean to you?

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One of the things that drew her was searching for how we get better at solving problems, really getting to the roots. She exemplified that with an example of how nonprofits during clothing drives kill the local market at times. Here, the root issue is economic mobility, hence solving the root rather than a symptom.

How has Detroit and its social impact landscape influenced your definition of social innovation?

There is a need for a collaborative table that is intentional and has buy-in from city, resident, nonprofit, and corporate leaders.  Her prior experience while working for the city’s food hub helped her ponder some questions: Right equipment? Right power? She reflects through her work with Urban Alliance as a pull model is essential.

Is there anything you would like to tell us about why you chose to be part of the larger work and your current role?

During the senior year of high school, Alena worked with students from 14 different schools. Then she first encountered how easy it is to rally around with an overlapping mission and get community members to the organization. They successfully raised $86,000 for Syrian American medical society. She continues, “when values and missions drive people, things get done.”

Why GreenLight Fund?

While at Urban Alliance, she worked to answer this collective question: “how can we as an organization tailor into a community’s need?” Moreover, she continued asking such important questions: when bringing the new program into space, how can we honor what's different, make it fit into the existing organization, and serve the community?

What were your biggest challenges and takeaways from this work?
  1. Learn to listen instead of speak
  2. Ask yourself: Does it matter to the people of Detroit? 
  3. Learn when to enter the conversation ( and to step back when not to)
  4. Focus on alleviating experiences.

Any advice for the next generation interested in being part of such space? 

“Take that intentional time to listen as you learn.”

What are the things that you look forward to/ encounter through this work that inspires you/favorite moments you would like to share? 
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Alena was (is) there to bridge the gap. She recalls her work at Urban Alliance, where she realized that students individually had everything they had to succeed.
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Week 5 - Neal Dalal

6/29/2021

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Please interview someone living and/or working in the social impact space in Detroit. Write a piece about them that you can share. 

This past week I was lucky enough to speak with David Bloom, a serial entrepreneur who now teaches at the University of Michigan’s Business school. As an individual the best word I can use to describe him is interesting. He started off as an electrical engineer and worked at the forefront of the tech world. He oversaw one of the biggest mergers in the tech sphere and was geared to live a lucrative lifestyle if he stuck with it. In short, he did not stick with it. Instead, he moved to California and worked at a startup. Unlike today where startups are considered “sexy” and desirable back then working at a start-up was the bottom of the tech totem pole.


He decided to work in the start-up industry because he had the “bug”. This bug, as he described, is a push that entrepreneurs get to innovate. As an individual David jumps between ideas, some successful and some colossal failures. For him, all it takes is an idea and then he pours his time and energy into making it a reality. Amidst this conversation, I came across several pieces of advice that I found enlightening. 

1.) For every person you talk to get two more conversations out of it.
2.) Don’t be afraid to talk about failure, too many people are
3.) Right now is the time to learn about Entrepreneurial Discovery 
4.) Success with anything is based completely on the user so get to know people

Overall, David was an inspiring man and this conversation was a highlight of the Duke Engage program thus far.

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Week 5 - Evan henley

6/29/2021

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Please interview someone living and/or working in the social impact space in Detroit. Write a piece about them that you can share.

For one of our projects at ProsperUs, Lara and I are interviewing local entrepreneurs to write stories on their journey. One of the companies we decided to reach out to is Guerrilla Food, a grassroots culinary team that has a farm-to-table carry out restaurant, a catering program, and a vintage food trailer. Meiko Krishok grew up in Wisconsin and studied comparative literature in college. Although she didn’t have a traditional background in business, she was always interested in different cultures and traveling, growing up around her grandmothers who instilled in her a strong food culture. Post college, she spent some time traveling and got involved in grassroots organizing and teaching, specifically Asian American teenagers. After living in Detroit for a few years, she was connected to the local food scene as well as a woman who had an old food trailer that was going unused. Meiko decided to take advantage of the opportunity not to create a business, but to bring people together in Detroit, a city she had recently moved to. Over time, this food truck, Pink Flamingo, expanded into a catering company and brick and mortar location. 

While talking to Meiko, I realized how important the communal aspect of Guerrilla Food is. So much of the joy that Meiko takes from the business has nothing to do with a monetary aspect, but mainly from bringing people together to enjoy food and culture. To me, this is what makes Guerrilla Food stand out: its commitment to their mission and community. Although Meiko never received formal training in business, she has taken advantage of many resources that have been made available to her; she jumps at every opportunity and is extremely passionate about her work. She recognizes that there are huge learning curves that restrict access to capital and connections, yet throughout her time Meiko has experienced kindness from fellow entrepreneurs. Detroit, although it has its problems, is a special place because of the passion of the people within it. They are resilient and kind, always willing to help one another for the betterment of their community.


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week 5 - isa hogshire

6/28/2021

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Please interview someone living and/or working in the social impact space in Detroit. Write a piece about them that you can share.
This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Paul Riser, a pillar of the social impact community. Paul’s deep knowledge about the city of Detroit comes from decades in the social impact and entrepreneurship space. In many ways, Paul is the model social innovator. After starting a non-profit in college, Paul knew he wanted to kick off his career in Detroit to continue his work in social impact. Paul has a background in information technology and spent the early parts of his career at a biomedical startup. Later, he transitioned to TechTown where he started as the head of business development. In this role he helped small neighborhood businesses grow and leverage state-based resources. Today, Paul serves as the head of Detroit Urban Solutions. Paul’s current role stems from Detroit’s complex economic history. After the municipality filed for bankruptcy, the government sought to imagine what innovation and entrepreneurship would look like in the city. Paul and D.U.S. are continuing this work by helping to attract and keep innovative talent in the region. They look at community challenges and bring together partners and stakeholders to address the problem across multiple verticals. What unites Paul’s diverse set of experiences is his constant adherence to his holistic approach to social entrepreneurship and desire to improve the quality of life for the people of Detroit. He uses his personal ties to his hometown a community-level perspective to drive his efforts. Moreover, recognizes the importance of bringing people together, arguing when that you think you are working in one space in social impact, you are really working in all of them. 

    Having spent 95% of his life in the city, Paul and Detroit grew up together, learning to see challenges, not as obstacles, but opportunities for radical change. According to Paul, Detroit’s challenges are what make the city a unique hub for innovation. He describes Detroit as an “underdog” as its often under-resourced forgotten. That said, there is immense opportunity for growth, making the city the ideal test bed for innovation. Keeping with this mentality, Paul sees Detroit as a potential magnet for talent and ideas. His ideas are exemplified by his recent project Erie Hack which focuses on partnerships and technology to improve Detroit’s “blue economy.” Paul predicts that the water industry is an existing asset that should be leveraged and preserved as it directly relates to community issues. What excites Paul most about this work is that it offers him the opportunity to work with people focused on the “triple bottom line: people, plant, and profit.” My conversation with Paul has shifted my perspective on the power of location and the importance of personal connection. As I consider where I want to be after college, I hope to mirror Paul’s approach: choosing a location where your personal drive has room to flourish and help those around you.

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WEEK 5 - LARA BAMBERGER

6/28/2021

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Please interview someone living and/or working in the social impact space in Detroit. Write a piece about them that you can share

This summer my partner Evan and I are taking part in a Storytelling Project with ProsperUS Detroit. For the project, we have reached out and participated in interviews with some of Detroit’s most interesting and inspiring entrepreneurs to hear about their journeys and businesses. Last week, we interviewed Dhafir Hasan, founder of Krispy Addict, a street stylish clothing brand. Hasan is originally from the West Side of Detroit and graduated with a degree in business management. Since being a child, Hasan has had goals and aspirations of owning his own business. Hasan had the idea for opening his clothing brand for a long time, always interested in the clothing industry, but revamped his business plan, fine tuned his work, and named his concept while working with ProsperUS Detroit. The name of the company, Krispy Addicts, holds a deep meaning to Hasan. First, the name is in part inspired by Crispus Attucks, the first American, specifically Black American, killed in the American Revolution. Hasan spoke about how Attucks’s name is not one that is prominent in our classrooms or widely known, and Hasan wanted to bring recognition to him. Crispus Attucks was also at the forefront of the Revolution, and that is where Hasan wants his company to be, at the forefront of the new revolution by using fashion. Hasan pays detailed attention to the products he sells and the images he puts out, and wants to help his community remember and combat the issues that plague his community, and wants to do this through fashion. In addition to the tribute to Crispus Attucks, Krispy is also a term that is used to describe something that is fresh and new, and Hasan wants his brand to be for people that are passionately addicted to living a lifestyle and dressing in a way that is krispy. 

Hasan is so much more than an entrepreneur and businessman. Hasan also serves as an inspiration for his peers and the youth in his area, and is a representative of and inspiration for social impact in his community. He wants others to be inspired by him, a man from inner city Detroit who had a vision from an early age and worked until his goals came to fruition. He is a role model for his community, demonstrating how you can accomplish what you set out to do and achieve your goals when you work hard and pursue your dream. Hasan currently operates two storefronts in communities where he is able to develop relations with the surrounding residents. He showcases other businesses’ flyers and business cards, and is open to local brands coming and doing popup shops in his store to help them grow. Hasan plans to follow through on many of his pre-COVID plans to engage with the community even more, speaking to community members, churches, and students, and giving back to the youth, helping them cultivate their skills so that one day they can fulfill their dreams just as he did.

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Sophie Cartolano - week 5

6/28/2021

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Interview someone living and/or working in the social impact space in Detroit. Write a piece about them that you can share. 

I had the pleasure of meeting with Hank Wolfe-Rodriguez, the Community Engagement and Cause Marketing Coordinator of Forgotten Harvest. Forgotten Harvest is a non-profit organization that fights hunger and waste by donating surplus food from community partners, such as restaurants or supermarkets, to emergency food providers in metro Detroit. What makes Forgotten Harvest unique amongst food banks is that it tackles waste alongside hunger, delivers its food free of charge, and focuses on the quality of food delivered rather than the quantity. Hank’s role specifically entails community outreach, as he is behind fostering partnerships between different organizations and Forgotten Harvest. 

During our conversation, Hank shared his perspective on what qualities it takes on a personal and organizational level to ensure that work in the social impact sphere is profound. He particularly highlighted the need to listen to your community and to physically get out there to see the effect of your work. This message resonated with me because we both agreed that in order to build empathy, which is a crucial quality to have in social impact work, you must be able to emotionally connect with the motives that drive your project. In whatever my future work may be, I hope to remain ambitious and compassionate through continually striving to understand the experiences and perspectives of those around me. 

It was also inspiring to hear how meaningful Hank’s work is to him. He mentioned previously working in the private sector, but ultimately feeling unfulfilled because he was not serving any higher, more socially valuable purpose. Serving his community is so rewarding that to a certain point he finds it selfish about how great it makes him feel to give back. This passion to improve society is often what distinguishes social impact work from more traditional, profit-driven work. Society’s biggest challenges require collaboration amongst the most creative and dedicated minds, and it is refreshing to see that there are authentic, genuine people behind the revitalization of Detroit such as Hank. Ultimately, it was moving to hear Hank describe his social impact work as having greater benefits than just making a salary, and I aspire to find similar meaning in my own future career. 
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PATRICK WACHIRA-WEEK 5

6/28/2021

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interview someone living and/or working in the social impact space in Detroit. Write a piece about them that you can share. 

When I first sat down with Michelle, I noticed that she uses hand gestures quite a bit when she talks. But something else was also hard to miss. On the palm of her right hand, she has what I at first thought was a tiny birth mark— it wasn’t. She later explained to me what it was, and what it meant to her. It was heartwarming. 

Michelle DiMercurio works as a Project Manager at TechTown, with the Workspace Events and Marketing team. She loves to “volunteer and follow the lead of people with great ideas.” This is how she found her way into the world of nonprofit organizations, in which she has enjoyed working for over a decade and a half. She got her start working with Detroit Synergy, where she was part of the team that collaborated with volunteers that had great ideas for serving their city. Her skills in graphic design and photography were instrumental in her work with the teams— she helped with the design of materials for the initiatives, such as maps for shopping initiatives, and flyers for local gardening activities. Some of these earlier initiatives, whose birth she was a part of, have grown to become notable and integral parts of their Detroit neighborhoods. The Lincoln Street Art Park, for which she was a founding member, stands as a great example of these. Over time, she hasn’t just seen Detroit grow and transform, but has been a force for this growth. She modestly exemplifies the resilient spirit of Detroiters, who are eager to take up the many opportunities to serve and grow their city. 

Michelle laughed when she told me about the first Hard Rock Café that opened in downtown Detroit. She said that to many people, that felt like the beginning of the coming of corporate chain stores into a city populated by mom-and-pop shops. And it probably was. But what matters is that people like Michelle have been in the city, not just watching its growth, but also being a part of it. Her journey working with Detroit nonprofits has been rewarding in many ways. It is how she has met a lot of her friends, and how she ended up with the tiny “birthmark” on her palm. 

Detroit has been home to Michelle for close to two decades, and she has loved it. That’s why she got a tattoo of it on her palm. Michigan is known to be shaped like a mitten, with Detroit at the bottom, right below the base of the thumb. So, right below the base of her right-hand thumb, Michelle has her city tattooed on her skin. It is the place that has grown her into the person she is; the place where she’s had the chance to serve her community. It is also the place her grandpa and dad peddled fruits, driving from Saginaw to Detroit Eastern Market. Detroit has made a permanent mark on her life, so it felt fitting that she has it permanently marked on the palm of her hand. 

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Week 5 - Donovaughn tulloch

6/28/2021

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Interview someone living and/or working in the social impact space in Detroit. Write a piece about them that you can share. 

In one of our weekly Friday Learning Sessions with GreenLight Fund, I had the pleasure of speaking with Cristina. She is the Director of Talent at GreenLight Fund and she primarily works in the HR space of the non-profit sector. Throughout her career, Cristina has been committed to ensuring that there is a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the workplace. In her current role as Director of Talent, she consistently brings an equity lens to GreenLight Fund’s procedures, policies, recruiting practices, and processes to uphold the organization’s values of inclusivity and diversity for its staff and stakeholders. 

During my conversation with Cristina, we touched upon the topics of entering the workforce and professional development. One of many key insights that I gained from our discussion was that you may think you know what jobs are available, but when you get out in the workforce you will see that there are a bunch of companies that you never knew existed. When working in the social impact space, there are various opportunities for me to showcase my skills and pursue my passion of giving a voice to individuals who may not have the means to advocate for themselves. 

Cristina encouraged me to not be frustrated if I don’t find the job that fulfills my passion right out of college. This is because I will always have the opportunity to change directions within my career path until I find something that is meaningful. 

When speaking about professional development, Cristina emphasized that we need to learn how to advocate for ourselves to better our skills and experiences. We are essentially the captains of our own ship and no one is going to advocate for us better than we can. So if there is something that I am really interested in (even if it is not in my field) I should ask how I can get involved. I will be sure to follow this great advice in my future career because there are so many challenges being solved in unique and impactful ways that I would love to get involved with.
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WEEK 4 PATRICK WACHIRA

6/23/2021

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I've always loved cars. From middle school all the way through high school, car shows were my favorite. It is, in fact, through the show “The Grand Tour” that I got to learn about Detroit’s fame as America’s Motor City. The presenters of the show explored some vacant warehouses and factories in the standard American muscle cars: a Ford Mustang, a Chevy Camaro, and a Dodge Challenger. It was a fascinating exploration of Detroit’s identity as the Motor City; a story that is still being told by the exhibition America’s Motor City through the popular Automotive Showplace at its entrance. 

The America’s Motor City exhibition tells the fascinating stories of both how the car culture built metro Detroit, and how metro Detroit built cars. Cars from the museum’s collection are featured on the exhibit. The area also showcases visitors’ stories of their experiences with their favorite classic cars — complete with vintage photos of individual cars and their owners. 

This would definitely be a first stop for me if we had our program in Detroit and got the chance to visit the museum. It doesn’t just show cars and tell the history of Motor City. It appreciates the car culture that makes people see cars as extensions of their personalities. 

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Week 4 Isa Hogshire

6/23/2021

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Check out one of the exhibitions at the Detroit  Historical Museum (link below), explore that part of Detroit history, and please reflect on what you learned about that exhibit

This week, I explored Detroit’s role in the “Arsenal of Democracy,” the slogan used by Franklin D. Roosevelt to describe America during World War II. The United States promised to help their Allies fight Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan by selling them military supplies. Roosevelt explained, “For us this is an emergency as serious as the war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.” The automotive hub of Detroit was a crucial component of this plan. The government encouraged the retooling of Detroit’s main industry, and the city changed over from cars to war machines at a remarkable speed. World War II brought new opportunities and challenges for Detroit. Although job opportunities increased, these changes brought overcrowding, shortages, and emotional loss as the war progressed.

I found this history to be particularly relevant to our work this summer as DukeEngage fellows. Leveraging existing resources to meet emerging needs is a fundamental aspect of innovation. Such innovations have the power to drive social change and create positive (and potentially negative) impacts. The “Arsenal of Democracy” tale also proves that when the right stakeholders get involved, Detroit has immense capacity for growth. However, rather than investing in growth for the sake of international relations and war, powerful voices should encourage innovation to address community needs. The organizations we are partnering with continue to draw on Detroit’s history of resilience and rising to the challenge in the innovation space
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