For our first team challenge, Challenge Detroit partnered with the Detroit Collaborate Design Center, a non-profit architectural firm run through the University of Detroit Mercy’s School of Architecture, to work with Bleeding Heart Design, a non-profit design group that works to improve communities through urban art installations. Rebecca Willis, the founder of b.h.d., has chosen to focus much of her initial work in Detroit’s Lindale Gardens neighborhood where she grew up. The Challenge Detroit fellows were split into teams and tasked with assisting b.h.d. by designing and implementing an urban art installation in Lindale Gardens as well as helping the organization grow in other areas that included grant writing, community outreach, media relations, and land acquisition. The challenge culminated with a community barbeque at the site of the art installation, where community members came together, enjoyed food and entertainment, and connected with each other, the fellows, and Bleeding Heart Design. The team I was assigned to, storytelling, was tasked with documenting the community, Bleeding Heart Design, and the challenge overall. We produced a video focused on the Lindale Gardens community. We also created a video about Bleeding Heart Design and the work of the Challenge Detroit fellows. Finally, we documented the neighborhood through a narrative photo project, and created a guide about storytelling and its ability to strengthen community.

There were several things that stood out to me over the course of this challenge, but most notably was the resilience possessed by many members of the Lindale Gardens community. Lindale Gardens has been subjected to many of the same hardships as other neighborhoods in Detroit. Blight, crime, broken street lights, and unkempt streets and sidewalks are all problems to be found there. Despite the presence of these issues, my conversations with neighbors were spent on the things in their community that act as a source of pride today and the hope that the future promises to bring. If a group of people who experience these difficult aspects of life on a daily basis can continue to remain positive about the future of their neighborhood and of Detroit as a whole, then why can’t the rest of us? These individuals have seen, first hand, Detroit in its darkest times. Yet they maintain that a brighter future is just around the corner. Meanwhile, many others know nothing about the true realities of Detroit, but still dismiss the city as a lost cause. So, what do the people in Lindale Gardens know that many others don’t? They know that with focused minds and a bit of willpower, neighborhoods can lift themselves up and rekindle past greatness and prosperity. They know that all it takes is a group of people with belief. The key, therefore, is instilling that belief not only in the people that live near them, but also those who view Detroit from a distance and judge it accordingly. It is instilling this belief in those outsiders that motivates much of the work I do with Challenge Detroit, a fact that I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Until next time,

Max