City Year: Bethune Elementary School

The concept for City Year’s 100% donation-based mentoring room in a high-need Detroit school is based around the tool that is often used in education to express ideas: a pencil. In the same way that a pencil provides limitless freedom to express ideas, the room provides tools to empower students to share ideas and, in turn, impact their world. The simple pencil idea was used to inspire the room in concept, color, and even literally to provide building blocks for design elements. We believe that “everything begins with an idea” and invested in this Detroit community’s next generation of thought leaders with an empowering and inspiring new space.