About Our Chapter
Detroit, Michigan Chapter – Founded in 1967
Chapter Founder – Everett Baggerly
In a sense, Walter Cronkite is the father of CISV Detroit. In the early 1960’s, he hosted a documentary show, “The Twenty-First Century.” In 1963 he aired a show about CISV Gulf Coast Chapter’s first Village. “Too Young to Hate” showed CISV successfully getting children together as friends and the impact on the community. Ford executive Everett Baggerly was impressed. Involved in the international group People to People, he didn’t explore CISV any further, but when he saw the film two years later, he envisioned his own sons in a Village.
With energy and networking, Ev Baggerly put together a committee composed of people from Ford Credit and Ford Motor Company Fund, local headmasters and principals, People to People, and the American Camping Association. They met Doris Allen in November. Within weeks, they had seven officers.
In late December, the committee told Bill Matthews at the CISV National Office that it intended to become a Steering Committee in 1966. In the spring, CISV’s National Council and the Trustees approved Detroit’s application. We became a Steering Committee and we were awarded a “reserve” delegation to the Philippines from the Football Pool.
Since the Philippines Village in December 1966, we’ve sent delegates to Australia, Austria, Liberia, India, Mongolia, Guatemala, Canada…and those are just some of them! We sent Interchange delegations every year from 1971 to 2022, and have participated in every CISV program, including Seminar Camp, Summer Camp, International Youth Meeting, and International People’s Project. We’ve hosted an experimental Community Village, International Villages, Seminar Camps, Summer Camps, Youth Meetings, MOSAICS, and International People’s Projects since 1970. We’ve brought together families across metro Detroit in lasting relationships that have changed lives. Detroit continues to host CISV programs yearly, bringing the ideal of “Too Young to Hate” to generation after generation looking for common ground.