I have another opportunity to give you an update on how the Detroit Dream Project, Temple of the American Dream is benefiting the community. As you know, we have already had a dedication party, a wedding, a fashion shoot, and live music, and World Hoop Day coming on August 8th, and now the Temple was part of Arise Detroit!

But it is more fun if I let Simmer, one of the volunteers and supporters of the Temple tell you about it herself:

So we’re coming back from dinner and Kathleen says “let’s swing by the temple and see how the space is doing?” We drive up to see the parking lot full of cars and people around – Derrick is at the entrance with a serious face kind of waving us toward some other event in the neighborhood, christian revival or somethin’ and I roll down the window and tell him “Just wanted to see how the temple is doing”. His face lights up like the greeter at the emerald city when Dorthy says the right words. Waves us into the near full lot to park. We then see a drum choir with dancers performing under the temple with a bunch of folks in chairs sitting/whooping/ and in general enjoying the performance. It was the dream come full circle and it made me proud of the tenacity some people had in making this happen. We did something truly good.

So what, you may ask is Arise Detroit, from the Arise Detroit! website:

ARISE is the acronym for Activating Resources and Inspiring Service and Empowerment. It is a way to link together the hundreds of programs and agencies working on child and family issues anti-violence, parenting, illiteracy, education, drug, neighborhood development, youth mentoring, etc. — to produce more resources, more volunteers and more help for the people who need it. ARISE will create a massive community wide movement, supported by people, non-profit groups, the media and individuals, to offer hope and let people know that they can play a personal role in improving their communities. Detroit has had years and years of individual programs and campaigns. And they have produced individual results. What is desperately needed now is an ongoing Hurricane Katrina-like rescue relief effort to address the chronic social ills that plague our community violence, illiteracy, poor parenting, misdirected youth, inferior education and many others. The resources are here to do a much more productive job of solving these problems but we must be united to do it!

To read more about the Detroit Dream Project!