Friendly Visitors to the HomeBase

Photo Credit- Rebecca Willis

Author: Rebecca Willis

October 11th, 2012

We get many visitors to the Long Term Planning HomeBase. We love talking with Detroiters about the progress the project is making, and getting their ideas about the future of the city.

But every so often you get frequent visitors like three-year-old Madison Cheatham and her “Granddaddy” Mr. Gregory Jolly. Like his name implies, Mr. Jolly is full of good humor, high spirits and is always a joy to converse with. In addition to being a grandpa, he’s a small business owner in the city’s North End neighborhood. He first heard about Detroit Works Project Long Term Planning during a Core City Neighbors Community meeting where our team was giving a presentation. Ever since, Mr. Jolly has been enthusiastic about the project.

“The people who gave the Long Term Planning presentation where so pumped about the project, I said let me go there and check it out,” recalled Mr. Jolly.

Now he and little Madison are frequent visitors to the HomeBase in Eastern Maket. At the end of each visit he takes a small stack of Long Term Planning literature with him so he can pass it out to his community and his customers at his car wash in the North End.

When we asked him why he was so excited about the project he replied, ”Because I’m interested in the city. I want to be here because my children and grandchildren are here; I want to spruce it up. I’m old enough to know that nothing happens over night. Step by step; it takes time to see a change in the city. The work you are doing on this is great!”

The Long Term Planning team really enjoys seeing Madison and Mr. Jolly and other members of the community who visit the Homebase. Detroiters, like Mr. Jolly that are enthusiastic about the work we are doing are key to the success of the project.