Restoring life in a rebuilt city
Adrianne Lewis and a team of volunteers walk down a Detroit street, pushing lawn mowers and wheelbarrows filled with rakes and weed trimmers.
They settle in to clean up an overgrown alley with garbage entangling the fence between homes. Volunteers clear brush and dig out debris—dragging suitcases, a dilapidated door and more to the curb.
Alleys like this are common routes for children walking to school in the inner city. Adrianne’s own mother-in-law grew up in the area and walked to nearby Central High School.
This family connection is one of many reasons why Adrianne, a Delta Dental customer service representative, volunteered this day. Delta Dental sent nearly 100 employees over two days to volunteer in the Durfee/Central community as part of Life Remodeled’s Six-Day Project.
Life Remodeled is a Detroit organization that helps transform lives by investing about $5 million in cash, labor and materials into a Detroit neighborhood each year. The goal: remodel a community asset, repair owner-occupied homes and mobilize thousands of volunteers to beautify 300 city blocks across six days. Life Remodeled and its volunteers are revitalizing the city.
“(My mother-in-law) was showing me the areas where she lived and she had walked to school,” Adrianne says. “She couldn’t imagine walking to school with the area being the way that it was. With the houses being torn down and all of the blight. She said she probably would have been scared to walk to school.
“But that was the point of us coming over here, cleaning up—so that the kids would feel safe; the neighbors would feel safe; the elderly would feel safe.”
But that was the point of us coming over here, cleaning up—so that the kids would feel safe; the neighbors would feel safe; the elderly would feel safe.
—Adrianne Lewis, Delta Dental employee
To me, volunteering and helping people you do not know is unconditional love, because you have no judgment for these people. Your only focus is going in to help in any way you can.
—Adrianne Lewis
Hometown Pride
Adrianne is a child of Detroit—she has lived here since she was 11 years old, when she moved from Nashville, Tennessee, with her mother and sister. Her husband, Warez, has lived in Detroit since he was 3. Today, they’re raising a family on the city’s northwest side, roughly six miles away from her volunteer site.
Detroit gets a bad rap, but Adrianne knows that living in the city comes with advantages. Her family enjoys the city’s rich history and culture. A love for Motown, the museums, Belle Isle, downtown and the city’s festivals—Adrianne’s pride for the city is evident.
“If you engage in the things the city offers, you’ll see it’s not always the bad news you see all the time,” she says. “Some news is close to home and is sad, but we also have a lot of good things going on in the city. You can’t focus on all the bad things.”
And it’s organizations like Life Remodeled that are focused on the “good things.”
“They’re in the heart of the neighborhood doing something. They are working to make all of Detroit better, not just downtown,” Adrianne says.
Instilling change
Life Remodeled normally makes one-year investments in neighborhoods, but the organization has committed to the Durfee/Central area until at least 2020. Progress is evident in this neighborhood where Detroit’s civil unrest began in 1967.
In 2017, Life Remodeled began renovating and repurposing the former Durfee Elementary Middle School and adjacent Central High School into the Durfee Innovation Society. It repaired 53 homes, boarded up 534 vacant houses and removed blight on 367 blocks. In 2018, it beautified 316 blocks, boarded up 396 houses, cleared 102 alleyways, planted more than 700 trees, shrubs and perennials, and much more.
As Life Remodeled continues its revitalization efforts, Delta Dental and employees like Adrianne plan to be there, doing our part.
If you engage in the things the city offers, you’ll see it’s not always the bad news you see all the time.
—Adrianne Lewis
