“Be Safe”. This is the response I would get when I tell family and friends that I would be spending my summer in Detroit. The national narrative with which the city of Detroit is portrayed in the media is as a hopeless place of crime and bankruptcy, yet in my first week, the land of the ‘313’ is very much an eye-catching place, with beautiful places, beautiful neighborhoods, and beautiful people.
For one of our stops in our bus tour, we stopped by an iconic outdoor art project known as the “Heidelberg Project”. The project is widely recognized around the world as a demonstration of the power of creativity in creating hope for the future. Throughout the area you see seemingly random assortments of clocks that make you wonder what they signify. The artist would famously ask, “What time is it?”. While most people would respond with the times on their phones or the times presented on the clocks in the area, the artist’s answer though was: “The Time is Now”. Now is the time for Detroit to grow and “rise out of the ashes”. You can physically see the growth of Detroit as a city and the love the residents have for the city.
Working with ProsperUS so far has been a great experience. ProsperUS is a nonprofit program that micro-lends to startups in underserved neighborhoods of Detroit and provides workshops and one-on-one consulting with low-income and minority entrepreneurs. This week, local entrepreneurs came to a Business-Basics workshop hosted by ProsperUS that I sat in on. This was the first time I got to see how passionate the people of Detroit are to start their own business and make a good living for themselves and their families. Also, the amount of people in this city that go out of their way to help people in need is so heartwarming. This mentality seems to be with everyone that I meet here in Detroit and I can’t wait for so many more experiences in this city.
For one of our stops in our bus tour, we stopped by an iconic outdoor art project known as the “Heidelberg Project”. The project is widely recognized around the world as a demonstration of the power of creativity in creating hope for the future. Throughout the area you see seemingly random assortments of clocks that make you wonder what they signify. The artist would famously ask, “What time is it?”. While most people would respond with the times on their phones or the times presented on the clocks in the area, the artist’s answer though was: “The Time is Now”. Now is the time for Detroit to grow and “rise out of the ashes”. You can physically see the growth of Detroit as a city and the love the residents have for the city.
Working with ProsperUS so far has been a great experience. ProsperUS is a nonprofit program that micro-lends to startups in underserved neighborhoods of Detroit and provides workshops and one-on-one consulting with low-income and minority entrepreneurs. This week, local entrepreneurs came to a Business-Basics workshop hosted by ProsperUS that I sat in on. This was the first time I got to see how passionate the people of Detroit are to start their own business and make a good living for themselves and their families. Also, the amount of people in this city that go out of their way to help people in need is so heartwarming. This mentality seems to be with everyone that I meet here in Detroit and I can’t wait for so many more experiences in this city.
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