My name is Penny Bailer and I am a Detroit community activist. I belong to Rotary, which is about service in Detroit. I was CEO of the Girl Scouts and City Year executive director, which is like the Peace Corps in the city. So it's always been focused on service and activism and making the city better, especially for kids. Nothing's more important than what happens to our children. 

My values really come from Detroit. I married Kermit Bailer, who was a born and raised Detroiter, who introduced me to a city that was in great need. It just touched my heart in such a way that I've fallen in love with the city. And I... I focused on race relations. I focused on poverty. I focused on your youth. And all of my work in my professional life and in my volunteer work has been focused on children and on young people. And to me, that's where you have a chance to really make a difference. We were always trying to be a change maker... actually, at Girl Scouts, we were concerned with teenage pregnancy, for example, and it was very controversial issue in the ‘80s. And we took it on because we believed that this is something that every girl has to deal with and has to know how to handle. We were the first Girl Scout council in the country to have a diversity awareness program for our troop leaders, because in Detroit, racism has been a horrible problem for many, many decades, if not forever. And it was so important that those leaders who work with girls had a passion and understanding of diversity and an appreciation for the beauty of diversity. 

Detroit is a fabulous example of overcoming adversity. We've been through the ups and downs of the economy of all the awful things you can think about. And yet Detroit has a fighting spirit. Detroiters just never give up. We just won't quit coming. You know, there are people here who have almost nothing in terms of economic stability or everything else, but they are passionate about making a difference, about helping others. It's a city with a great heart. And I just love being here.