PeerCorps builds a bridge between the city and suburbs by providing middle schoolers with meaningful volunteer opportunities. Serving alongside high school aged mentors, PeerCorps middle schoolers (or mentees) can sign up to serve for our Fall Cycle at food justice or education justice sites.
Click here for more info and to sign up!
Calling all 8th – 10th graders! If you’re looking to keep your love of service going and the community building going, Kesher is the place for you. Kesher means ‘connection’ and is about connecting PeerCorps mentee alums and friends in grades 8th-10th to Detroit, one another, and service opportunities. Kesher participants are invited to sign up for once a month programs. Kesher gives mentees (who will hopefully one day be mentors!) an opportunity to stay involved with PeerCorps during the end of middle school and early high school years.
Sign up here.
Interested in service, leadership, and community? Sounds like you’re ready to be a PeerCorps Mentor. If you’d like to be a Mentor, contact [email protected] today.
In 2018-19, PeerCorps Detroit mentors and mentees are placed at six different service sites:
You can read a bit more about our PeerCorps Detroit sites HERE.
Upon completion of the program, mentors will receive a stipend of $500.
Participate in a full year of programming including:
An exciting week for PeerCorps Detroit Mentors, mentors begin their program year with a Gesher Week at the end of August. This immersive week of living, working and exploring together in Detroit provides an opportunity for mentors to develop mentorship skills, self-awareness, critical thinking, and to deepen their understanding of Tzedek through connecting Jewish values to learning about self and society.
Gesher Week attendance is required to participate in PeerCorps.
Mentees participating in PeerCorps are expected to bring excitement and enthusiasm for learning, meeting new people, and actively engaging in their service project. Our service projects are in community organizations that thrive on volunteers who bring their whole selves, including their creativity and follow through to the work. We’d like for mentees to think about and begin to understand service in the context of Jewish tradition and becoming bar or bat mitzvah.
We also expect them to:
As a parent of a PeerCorps Mentee, we expect that you will attend and transport your child to the carpool location. PeerCorps will provide transportation for all the service days (from a carpool location). We expect that you will encourage and enable your child to participate to their full extent in their cycle of service. We also expect that you bring any questions or concerns directly to us at PeerCorps.
No, we are grateful to have the cost of PeerCorps participation underwritten for each school year.
The first line of supervision of Mentees are their high school-aged Mentors, along with a Repair the World staff person, Fellow, or other designated adult at each site.
PeerCorps is truly a unique Jewish experience, specific to the congregations involved as well as the region we live in. Our training for mentors and mentees is called “Gesher” – the Hebrew word for bridge. We believe that we are helping to build and strengthen an important bridge between our congregations and our community partners in Detroit. PeerCorps engages middle schoolers and high schoolers from the city in extremely meaningful service work in Detroit.
Here are a few testimonials from our past mentors:
“I think of the city in a whole new way. It is it’s own world with so much life inside of it.”
“We can be a part of a movement that helps make a difference.”
When we asked the mentors what sets this program apart from others they’ve experienced they answered that it was meaningful, and thought-provoking. They enjoyed the unknown aspects of it, the people they met, the atmosphere of respect, being given responsibility. Mostly, they said that they felt a part of something bigger than what they had expected.
Kesher means ‘connection’ and is about connecting PeerCorps mentee alums and friends in grades 8th-10th to Detroit, one another, and service opportunities. Kesher participants are invited to sign up for once a month programs mostly on Sundays. Kesher gives Mentees (who will hopefully one day be Mentors!) an opportunity to stay involved with PeerCorps during the end of middle school and the start of high school.
Absolutely not! While each service opportunity and mentor learning will include reflection on relevant Jewish values, we welcome anyone to participate.
All questions, concerns, comments, etc. can be directed to [email protected] or call (248) 835-8662.
