By Doug Bitonti Stewart, Executive Director of the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation

We are thrilled to announce Aaron Dworkin as our first ever Poet Journalist in Residence for the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation and to share with you his first work: The Garden of Brightmoor.

The goal of this piece is to share the joy and hard work behind the efforts of our partners in the Brightmoor Quality Initiative (BQI). Written with the input and passion of the early childhood educators and leaders of BQI, this first of three poems commissioned by the Foundation is available in text form and performed here via video.

The feeling we get from being alongside our neighbors in community seeing the work they do to help repair our world is not something we can capture in reports and through data. Whether it is in Israel with opportunity youth, on stage with performers sharing their art, or seeing the smiles on the faces of kids and their families in an early childhood center in Brightmoor, we wanted to find a way to share the emotion and depth of the commitment and love emanating from the people who dedicate their lives to impact.

“To engage with the grace of family

What some see as care does not reflect

The borne weight of responsibility

And education that takes place

In the Garden of Brightmoor.”

This effort also aligns with one of the goals Margie Fisher set for her tenure as Chair. After serving as a Trustee for more than 16 years, in 2020 Margie became our Chair and began to chart a course for her three years as leader. In addition to our aspirations identified in alignment with our impact areas, Margie and I set out to bring more joy to our work and our partners. Asking Aaron, a world-class multi-media artist, social impact entrepreneur, and educator to help us translate our feelings of gratitude for being allowed into the work of our partners and neighbors is one step in this important direction.

“And trees painted on walls with colors in the currency

Of calculated learning building a bridge

Beyond the blight to a prized space to be able to give back

To these matrons who gave so much

To make so many so much more . . . “

By taking the phonics of data, the grammar of reports, the trust in our relationships, and melding them into the poetry of the Garden of Brightmoor, our shared hope for you is to accept this gift by reading or listening so you can feel the meaningful struggle and joy of our partners – in The Garden of Brightmoor.