“We called it Divine providence,” Lockett said of the unexpected meeting. We asked ourselves would the Jewish community be interested in helping us out. We were talking about the financial difficulties in supporting the center. Lockett said, “You wouldn’t believe what we discussed this morning at a board meeting. “It’s not only us it’s 3,500 families and 10,000 members,” Rubenfire said. Melvyn Rubenfireĭuring the tour, Rubenfire told Lockett that he grew up in the neighborhood, but he was also representing the Jewish community and Temple Israel, adding the rabbi said the NWAC would be a good target for the temple’s social action programs. “And he said, ‘How about in 20 minutes?’” Dr. “I returned his call, and said how about a tour in two weeks?” Lockett said. When he called the NWAC to ask for a tour of the facility, he got a call back from Ron Lockett, executive director and CEO. “We didn’t know what to expect, if it was in shambles or what,” Rubenfire said. On the Monday after the sermon, they took a trip to the old neighborhood. “We said, ‘It’s time to give back to more than the Jewish community.’” “We have been giving time and money to the Temple and the community,” Rubenfire said. Now a cardiologist for his second 20 years at the University of Michigan Health System and director of the Preventive Cardiology Department, he and his wife, Diane, want to give back. Schooled at MacDowell Elementary, Mumford High and then Wayne State, he became a cardiologist, then chairman of the Department of Medicine at Sinai Hospital for 20 years. Rubenfire of West Bloomfield was brought up a half-mile from the NWAC, which in the 1950s was better known as the Jewish Community Center. Melvyn Rubenfire of West Bloomfield Karen Sherbin of Farmington Hills Rabbi Josh Bennett of Temple Israel Andre Peterson of Gleaners Melvyn and Diane Rubenfire, who heard the sermon, the movement began.īack To Detroit Ron Lockett, executive director and CEO of the Northwest Activity Center Lisa Corey of Birmingham Warren Crockett of Detroit Dr. “I had to re-envision the next stage of my career.”Īnd with the help of Dr. It was the rabbi’s High Holiday “A Call to Action of Social Justice” sermon that sparked the movement.Īfter 18 years working with teenagers as the youth rabbi, Bennett moved on to social action, he says. “One of our challenges is to move slowly,” Bennett says, looking over the scene of volunteers loading shopping carts with food. The next two programs will be “Blessings in a Backpack,” which partners with Meijer to give food to students from low-income schools for the weekend and building a food pantry similar to Yad Ezra in the NWAC basement. This monthly “Mobile Pantry,” a partnership with Gleaners, is just one spoke in the wheel, says Temple Israel’s Rabbi Josh Bennett. He joins volunteers from Temple Israel, Hartford Baptist Church, Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan and several other local charitable organizations at a mobile pantry set up in the center as part of “Project Healthy Community: An Evolving Vision with Endless Opportunities” (PHC), a program that began at Temple Israel last fall. “We’ll need more carts next time,” says Warren Crockett, a volunteer from the University Commons District. On a clear, cold day in late February at the Northwest Activity Center on Meyers and Curtis in Detroit, a steady stream of people in need walk into the center’s “hub,” load bags of nutritious food into shopping carts and take them back to their cars. What started as a sermon has become a cause. Temple Israel volunteers help Northwest Detroit stay strong.
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