Equally important, we connected people looking for assistance in such areas as mentoring, tutoring, promoting literacy and fighting crime with numerous organizations that can provide the help they need.

In a matter of a few months, our organization partnership base has swelled from our 22 original founding members to 88 partners and supporters, representing a wide spectrum of the human services, business, religious and media community.

We were also honored with resolutions of support from Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit City Council, courtesy of City Council President Kenneth Cockrel Jr., and Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

A special thank you to all of the facilitators and supporters who played key roles in making our launch week a success.

Mentoring Day was made special by the appearance of Dan Mulhern, husband of  Gov. Jennifer Granholm and president of Mentoring Michigan, and Thomas Worford, president of the Detroit chapter of 100 Black Men, and  Kevin Hatcher.

Our final “Reclaiming The Village: From Passion to Action” community summit event at Fellowship Chapel on June 30 featured a live phone-in call from Bill Cosby who expressed his support for ARISE Detroit! He also  urged  Detroiters to press on with our movement until it spreads to other cities around the nation.

Thanks to motivational speakers Raphael Johnson, Jonathan Edison and Rev. A.K. Nadeer whose powerful message of self-empowerment was inspirational.

Also, thanks to Detroit Public Schools for their support on School Involvement Day and the Detroit Public Library staff for a great day of  programs which produced 25  new volunteers for the Proliteracy Detroit.