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"Originally from Oak Park, Michigan, a suburb right outside Detroit, it can be discouraging to see the countless not-so-great news stories abut my hometown. There was the yearlong story about a sex-and-misconduct scandal by our former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick who eventually resigned. There has been multiple reports about a poorly-run public school system. And it doesn&amp;#039;t help that Michigan has the highest unemployment rate (14.3%) in the country. Although it might seem like Detroit residents don&amp;#039;t have much to cheer about, I am confident that the city will persevere despite its enormous hardships\u2014and it&amp;#039;s great to see that others feel the same way. Four years ago, Julie Heckler founded the Motor City Rah Rahs, a cheerleading group of eight middle-aged women, to help promote the city and boost morale. They have performed at many big events including concerts and festivals throughout the city, and they plan to take part in the St. Patrick&amp;#039;s Day Parade next week. And there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Just today, a coaliton of nonprofit organizations announced its plans to push for mayoral control of the public school system and establishing a goal to graduate 90% of its high school students by 2020. Also, General Motors appeared at a job fair to scout new hires earlier this week, and Henry Ford has developed a program in conjunction with Oakland University to assist former line workers seeking a career change. These are both small yet significant milestones for the recession-affected automakers who dubbed Detroit &amp;quot;The Motor City.&amp;quot; Lastly, Time Inc. is doing a yearlong project called Assignment Detroit to focus on &amp;quot;the city in crisis\u2014but with potential for a big comeback.&amp;quot; Detroit, I&amp;#039;m rooting for you all the way to the top. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/news/a44403/rah-rah-for-detroit-3236/>