
Hi! My name is Amira Soliman and I am a first-year
AmeriCorps member serving with City Year Detroit. City Year is an education focused
non-profit organization that hires 17-24 year olds as AmeriCorps members to be
tutors, mentors, and role models in high-need schools. We are striving to end
the dropout crisis in 24 cities across the United States, as well as 2
international sites in England and South Africa.
Since I am originally from New York, my
placement in Detroit has been very exciting. Detroit has a lot of potential to
become a great comeback city- there are a lot of influential organizations
and people in the city creating change. In addition, Detroit is implementing new systems to level
the educational system and support struggling students, and I am excited that
City Year is a part of the change.

This past week, my team put on our first large event, the 1st annual College and Career Night at Central. We reached out to nearly 50 college and career representatives to come to the event and represent their institutions to our students. After several months of planning, the night came and we had 15 students volunteer to stay after school to help us set up. It was very exciting to see some of the students volunteer to escort the admissions representatives to their table.

Another exciting project I’ve been a part of was not one of my own host school’s, but rather a national event. Each year on Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Day, AmeriCorps programs across the country plan large service projects and invite community members to become involved in revitalizing their local areas. This year, City Year Detroit partnered with Detroit Public Schools to plan service projects at four schools and also provided support for several local non-profits.

A great thing about Osborne High School is that the engagement level among students is very high. During our planning days, we had students ask about volunteering and many came out on MLK Day to support the projects at their school. I was a project coordinator for the bathroom painting projects and had a City Year alum and three Osborn students volunteering alongside me. Throughout all of the day's service projects, we had many other student volunteers, City Year alumni, and corporate volunteers who participated in the MLK Day service.

MLK Day was a pivotal mark for City Year members as it is the half-way point of our
service. Though this means we still have a while to go, I’m already glad to
have taken so many opportunities this year to get squishy. That's what
a year of service should be and I'm excited to experience other ways to get squishy in the year ahead.
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