Building

In 2019, we moved into the school home of our dreams: a formerly abandoned school that we brought back to life with and for our community.

Our space:

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We purchased and fully renovated our dream space.

Now we need your support to continue paying off our loans to ensure this building is financially sustainable for our community for years to come.

How you can help:

Detroit Prep adds one grade level each year and, after our 3rd school year, we no longer fit in our old rented space. With your help, we were able to buy a school building of our own! It’s our dream space and perfect for our growing Detroit Prep family. We need to continue to work towards our goal of fundraising $1,000,000 in order to pay off our loans and make this building sustainable for our community.

 

We need cash!

Every dollar that you are able to give will make a huge impact on our school. We will squeeze the use out of every single penny. Please please please consider digging as deep as possible and making a gift to our building project.

We need you to tell everyone you know!

When you donate, we will send you a unique image like the one you see below. The image will feature a number corresponding to what number donor you were! Share it on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter right away and, if you are feeling super kind and supportive, make this image your social media profile picture for a month. Your friends and family are probably (almost) as awesome as you are and so sharing our mission with them will be an enormous help for Detroit Prep! Even if you can't donate, sharing our fundraiser and our updates is a tremendous help.

We need you to come hang out!

Come to our events and bring your friends! Since this is a long and ongoing fundraiser, we will be hosting lots of events to meet you, thank you face-to-face, and to make giving a little bit more fun :) Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates!

WHY YOU SHOULD HELP US:

  • If we can't continue to raise the money to pay off our building renovation loans, that would be, to say the least, very bad.

  • It deserves a huge source of blight to be returned to its original use as a school and community hub. Research shows that schools can reinvigorate a neighborhood fast and authentically, and this community truly deserves it.

  • We give all students a foundation of academic excellence and character development while fostering a love of learning and passion for exploring and fulfilling their extraordinary potential as learners, leaders, and world-changers. This new building will help us do that.

The Building

Isn't it perfect? We love it. We fought like crazy to own it and worked tirelessly to renovate it.

THE DETAILS:

  • It is less than 1 mile from our previous location, which means we were able to maintain our same bus routes and continue to serve our families!

  • It is located in Pingree Park, a really awesome neighborhood with lots of kids and families that need an excellent school option!

  • The building is 43,500 square feet and has 21 classrooms and 3 levels. It has hundred-year-old oak floors, space for a kitchen, cafeteria, and small gathering/performance space. This means it will hold us until we are at capacity, serving kindergarten through 8th grade.

  • We have space to build a playground and an outdoor learning space to support our project-based learning curriculum! Until 2021, we had no full playstructure and a very tiny space for our students to play outdoors.

The Transformation

2nd Floor Corridor

2nd Floor Corridor

Portrait Stairwell

Portrait Stairwell

1st Floor Corridor

1st Floor Corridor

Classroom

Classroom

Multipurpose Room

Multipurpose Room

We are so lucky to know such know such incredibly kind people who helped make this building renovation possible:

  • At the kickoff of our fundraising efforts to purchase our building, The Born and Raised Detroit Foundation generously offered $10,000 when we reached our first 500 donors!

  • At the kickoff of our fundraising efforts to purchase our building, the incredibly generous Madonna announced a $100,000 matching challenge grant, which we reached!

  • The team from Grey Ghost, along with the city’s top chefs raised $75,000 at our 1st Annual Chef’s Schoolyard in April 2018, and over $100,000 at our 2nd Annual Chef’s Schoolyard in May 2019!

  • The wonderful teams from Chase Bank’s New Market Tax Credit department and IFF were integral to our financial closing. We are grateful for them every single day!

 

Let us name something special in your honor. 

$1,000,000 is a lot of money. Your generous gift (that will make such a huge impact on our entire school & community) should be recognized for years to come.