Summer in the City is a “do-ocracy” of incredible young leaders who bring endless energy and creativity to running the program. Many of the people who make up the Board of Directors and Crew started volunteering back when they were in high school (“dainty lads and ladies,” Henry would say) and have never been able to kick the habit. If you’d like to join the do-ocracy…just do it.

The mission of Summer in the City is to change the impact of volunteers on Detroit and of Detroit on volunteers. By bringing a diverse group of young people together to invest their energy in Detroit, Summer in the City programs address the immediate needs of city neighborhoods and foster a regional mindset.

Summer in the City has a new home! We just moved to the corner of Clark and Vernor in beautiful Southwest Detroit! If you need to send us something in the mail, our address is:
      Summer in the City
      1655 Clark Street
      Detroit, MI 48209
Although we love our new home, we’re not really office people, so you’ll rarely find us there. Every day during the summer, we go from eight carpool sites around the region to as many as 12 projects sites across Detroit.

The first “summer in the city” was 2002. Ben, Neil and Michael were wise, wise 20 year olds who met every day at Andover High School and took whoever showed up down to Detroit for great times in Detroit. That first summer, the daily average was about a dozen volunteers – much higher than expected. In 2010, the average broke 200 volunteers per day.

Supply and demand! We looked around Detroit and could see that there was an unprecedented need for volunteers to do important things in Detroit and a virtually limitless supply of prospective volunteers who just needed a vehicle to get involved. We were our own best focus group: free time on summer vacation and lots of restless energy, but we didn’t want to have to commit our whole summer. Something in the City has grown exponentially since the first days, but the core values and philosophy remain unchanged.

Sparingly. Summer in the City runs on a shoe-string budget with virtually no overhead. Most of our funding comes from individuals and families in the community who believe in what we do. We also have some strong corporate and foundation partners and we are always looking for creative ways to work with anyone who wants to make things happen in Detroit. (Volunteer registration fees cover about 15% of the total program costs.)

Anyone who is 14 years old or finished with 8th grade – whichever comes first. The program is designed for individuals to volunteer, but we also work with a lot of volunteer groups. If transportation constraints are getting in the way of you volunteering, let us know and we’ll try to help you get in the game.

Just show up! Okay, it’s a little more complicated than that, but our goal is to make Summer in the City as accessible as possible. Before you volunteer, you need to register, but after that, you can come whenever you want, as little or as often as you want, and you never have to sign up for a specific day in advance.

Click here for the registration form. Make sure you print the waiver and bring it your first day along with your registration fee, unless you opt to pay the fee online in advance.

This summer, the program runs every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from June 25 to August 16 with the exception of July 4 and 5. You can come as little or as often as you want. Some people come just a couple of times to check it out, but fair warning: you will probably get hooked and want to keep coming back again and again.

We spend about $15 per volunteer per day to create the “fun, flexible, fulfilling” experience that our volunteers have come to expect. We provide all the paint for our murals and supplies for our youth program – plus food, transportation, staffing and so on. It takes a year-round fundraising effort to make the summer possible and the registration fee is a modest but important way to defray each volunteer’s costs. Of course, we hope volunteers and their families will consider making a tax-deductible donation along with their registration.

Summer in the City is designed for lots of individual volunteers (and pairs of siblings and threesomes of friends) spread out over the whole summer. We also work with a variety of great groups over the summer and have had great experiences with them. We just need to plan in advance to make sure we have the capacity for your group to rock out with us, so please email groups@summerinthecity.com.

The Crew and Carpool Captain should be easy to spot – look for SITC shirts and a clip board. They can sign you in, take your form and fee, give you your T-shirt and let you know what’s in store for the day.

Most importantly, you should wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty and sturdy shoes – no sandals! We will have snacks and water, but you may want to bring your own. You can also bring your phone and camera, just make sure to keep close track of them. Also, no sandals or sandals.

The SITC day is packed with painting, planting and playing with hardly a moment to spare for a full out lunch. This being said, we ask our volunteers to leave their lunches at home. We take periodic short breaks for chewy granola bars and water AND try to get all of our volunteers back to their carpool sites by 2 pm. – just in time for them to head home and dig into a delicious meal.

Click here to see the ten carpool sites. If at all possible, we want you to come to the carpool sites rather than going to the project sites. That said, if you can’t get to a carpool site but can get to a project site, we’ll work with you to make it happen.

The posted start time is 9:00, but we encourage everyone to arrive 10-15 minutes before 9:00. The earlier you arrive, the more choice you’ll have in what project you do that day. We are scheduled to return at 2:00, which means anywhere from 1:30 to 2:30 when you figure in the projects, their locations and those orange cones that bloom in the summer. Fridays we barbecue, so we tend to get back later.

Excellent question – thanks for asking. There is emphatically no advanced sign-up for Summer in the City. Everybody loves the flexibility, but we also want to make sure we have enough drivers, paint, hot dogs, etc. Being a Head’s Up Volunteer will help us help you – we can plan better and you can pick what project you want to do.

The old answer was, “you won’t.” The program has grown to a point where we have multiple mural (paint!), garden (plant!) and youth enrichment (play!) sites every day, so you should get to pick whichever you want whenever you come. As we mentioned above, being a Head’s Up Volunteer and showing up 10-15 minutes before 9:00 will maximize your options. Still, there will be days where we have to tell you want you are going to do instead of asking, so thanks in advance for your flexibility.

At the heart of every project we do is a partnership. We have over 40 community partners in Detroit, including nonprofit organizations of all sizes, schools, churches block clubs and city agencies. Some of our many incredible partners are featured here.

Every day, we paint, plant and play. After years of trial and error (sometimes more error than trial), we have found that painting murals, planting community gardens and mentoring (rocking out with) kids in Detroit provide the greatest experience for our volunteers and impact for our community partners. Of course, the great thing about Summer in the City, is you can try different projects on different days or sink your teeth into just one. And we’re always open to new partnernships, projects and possibilities!

Our efforts take us to every corner of Detroit, but we only go to areas that we know and that know us. We have a lot of great partners in Midtown and Southwest Detroit neighborhoods, but you could also find yourself in Hamtramck or on the east side.

We have multiple youth, garden and murals sites running each day. This ensures that there will always be enough work for everyone and that volunteers will get the most project preference possible.

Wherever our projects take us, we always leave things tidier than we found them. But we never spend all day picking up litter because, frankly, it feels like punishment and, while we are on record as being vehemently anti-litter, we look for service opportunities that are going to excite, engage and empower our volunteers. Litter detail isn’t one of them.

Safety is our number one priority. We have a strong ratio of attentive, well-trained site leaders to volunteers, in addition to the community partners we work alongside. Before we do any project, we make sure there is nothing the risks the safety of anyone involved.

We are – but we need your help to track them accurately. When you arrive at the carpool site, sign the attendance sheet so we know which days you came. You’ll also sign in on a postcard-size sheet so we know who you drove with (or if you drove) and where you went. Then we compile all the information into a master database to ensure you get credit for your good work.

Four hours. If you drive others, you get five hours for your assistance in facilitating the service experience of your fellow volunteers.

You don’t have to. We independently certify all hours so the paperwork doesn’t get in the way of the volunteer work. That said, if you’re going to get in big trouble for not filling out a very specific form at a very specific time – this is exceptionally rare – we’ll fill out your form.

We issue electronic copies of certificates via email at the end of the summer.

Why electronic? Saving paper and postage? Why at the end of the summer? During the summer, we are moving pretty much nonstop, so we need to let the dust settle for a minute before we can accurately certify your hours.

Fill out this form and we’ll get your certificate out ASAP.

We did! Pretty cool, right? Admittedly, it’s got some quirks, but we are very proud of it. Special thanks to our unwitting webmaster Mike “Brotherly Love” Dunn for keeping the dream alive, even from 600 miles away.

We are especially excited about the daily pictures (here are last year’s), old and new videos and profiles of Summer in the City people, each of which has a unique SITCause to help make the summer a success. Coming soon…SITCionary of our favorite catch phrases and gibberish.

Bottom right corner of the homepage – don’t miss out on our gnarly gnewsletters!

As often as we can. There should be new blog entries, pictures and videos every day this summer, so check back often.

Funny story. We used to be summerinthecitydetroit.org, but no one could ever remember it. And it was too long to fit on some of our print materials, so we had to also get sitc-det.org. Then, out of the blue one day, a nice lady from New Jersey called us and offered to donate summerinthecity.com. Even though we are a .org in real life, she made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. Thanks, New Jersey Lady! And, for that matter, Bruce Springsteen.

We’d love to feature your insights and images on the site. Just email them to web@summerinthecity.com and you’ll be famous in no time!

People just like you! Summer in the City is funded completely by private donations from people and groups who believe in what we do. The majority of our budget is comprised of $25 to $250 donations and every dollar really does make a difference to our efforts.

We provide all the paint for our murals, supplies for our youth programs, transportation and more. In other words, the things that directly impact the caliber of our service projects. As important is what we don’t spend money on – Summer in the City has virtually no overhead so the overwhelming majority of every donation, whatever size, goes directly to our projects and partnerships.

So glad you asked. You can make a donation online or get details about how else to donate by clicking here.

Our annual Ice Cream Extravaganza is a great way for everyone to come together and celebrate at the end of each summer. Stay tuned for details regarding this year’s ICE.

Everyone has a different reason for donating, but just to name a few – maybe your son or daughter has volunteered or someday wants to; maybe you live in Detroit or used to live in a neighborhood where we work; maybe you’ve never even been to Detroit but can’t shake a certain feeling that, for all the trials and tribulations, Detroit might just have a bright future ahead of it and you want to be part of that in some small way. No matter what your reason, our pledge is to treat your donation as an investment and stretch is as far as we can in pursuit of community service that changes the lives of our volunteers as they work to raise the quality of life in Detroit.

We love in-kind donations. If you’ve got something you think might help us, email staff@summerinthecity.com.

The Crew. Who makes up the Crew? An incredibly indefatigable group of young leaders who do everything from design murals to plan field trips to grill hamburgers and hot dogs. All of the Crew members are out of high school, though some just by a couple of weeks and most are themselves volunteers.

Like the Navy Seals or Mickey Mouse Club, the JCrew is an elite group of volunteers between their junior and senior year of high school who demonstrate creative, energetic leadership skills. If you fit the profile and want to get in on the action, let us know.

For Adult Swim – leadership development and Detroit enrichment opportunities for the Crew – we have had the privilege of going to the Opera House, Detroit Historical Museum, Comerica Park, Hamtramck art galleries, the River Walk and other exciting locations in Detroit.

We aren’t big on deadlines at Summer in the City, but sooner tends to be better for leadership opportunities. With some lead time before the summer, we can tailor a leadership experience to match the interests, experience and commitment level of each member of the Crew or JCrew. Also, there are some opportunities for AmeriCorps funding with deadlines earlier in the year. That said, if summer rolls around and you can’t bear to be stuck on a couch or in a cubicle, give us a holler.

Now we’re blushing. Really, though, Summer in the City is all about creating opportunities for young people to help build a bright future for Detroit, so who better to take the lead than young people who, in most cases, start volunteering when they are in high school and have a dedication to Summer in the City and love of Detroit that keeps them coming back year after year. Don’t underestimate them based on their age – they are highly ambitious for themselves and for the organization, seeking our new partners, starting new carpools sites and spreading the word about our work throughout metropolitan Detroit and beyond.

Really, they choose us. Summer in the City is a great experiment in self selection and the Crew represents some the most committed, capable people in Detroit – if not the entire planet. Being on the Crew is different from being a volunteer because, rather than painting murals and planting gardens, your job is to make sure that we are doing everything possible to ensure positive, productive experiences for our volunteers. That said, we all lead by example – and get our hands dirty.

We do – cool, right?

Right now, T-shirts and bumper (or water bottle or laptop stickers), but we hope to be adding new schwag soon. Click here to get your SITC gear.

All of the money that we make from selling merchandise goes directly to support our projects and partnerships.

Wouldn’t you like to know? Really, we usually print the shirts in spring to get the good vibrations going in advance of the summer. You could be one of the lucky few to get your hands on a pre-season shirt.

Variety is the spice of life! Every summer brings new people, opportunities and challenges, so why not a new T-shirt color? That way, you can be the first kid on your block, collect the whole set, etc. And now every week we have Throwback Thursdays where volunteers and Crew members sport their old-school shirts – at least the ones they haven’t sold for untold sums on eBay.

Got a group coming to Summer in the City, want some shirts tailored for a special event or just need to get your hands on some one of a kind SITC stuff? Yeah, we can probably swing that. Drop us a line and we’ll see what we can do.

R&D stands for Reflection and Dialogue. SITC now has a five part curriculum tackling issues ranging from personal identity and community to racism and personal narratives in and about Detroit.

R&D was created by Summer in the City crew members in collaboration with community members, educators, organizers, and leaders in Detroit and the metropolitan area. Anyone involved in SITC will benefit from R&D.

One of many of the R&D goals is to create a system where information gets passed down from crew members to volunteers. R&D will be taking place everywhere SITC takes place, points of interest in and around Detroit, as well as couches, basements, and kitchens.

Every Wednesday during the summer, crew members will convene for approximately an hour and a half while the R&D team infiltrates their minds with what we hope is at least somewhat useful information. As stated above, we hope that beyond these few hours every week, crew members will bring what they are learning in R&D sessions to the field and to the volunteers daily.

SITC is in its 10th summer. It’s time for a deeper analysis. As SITC, we believe we can no longer tackle any issue in Detroit without a deeper understand of why our city is the way it is.

For more information on R&D, you can contact Mary Naoum at mary@summerinthecity.com.