Life Remodeled

Opportunity hubs (dis and cooley/denby) - the durfee innovation society (dis) exists to create substantial and impactful opportunities for detroit children, families and adults to thrive in the areas of youth programs, jobs and community resources while advancing cross-sector collaboration. In 2023 resources were used in attempting to acquire a building for a 2nd opportunity hub first in the cooley then in the denby communities. These include community engagement/youth activities, listening sessions, and other activities meant to garner/foster support in 2023, Life Remodeled continued to maintain 100% occupancy of the dis building with nearly 40 tenants who directly served 28,000+ detroiters. The efforts in the cooley and denby communities directly led to the acquisition of the anchor detroit building on the city's east side, a building that is currently being rennovated to provide similar services as the dis provides to a separate community of detroiters, along with vital technological youth/community resources that are not provided at the dis.

Youth engagement - Life Remodeled has seen a direct link between engagement from students and families in the neighborhoods we serve equating to success of the programs at the dis. Therefore, we continue to engage with the students, parents, staff and teachers at durfee elementary-middle and central high school in order to reach our goals of helping the schools increase attendance as well as improve math and reading scores.in 2023, Life Remodeled focused on continuing to build youth engagement efforts in detroit following the covid-19 pandemic. Life Remodeled helped durfee and central students through a variety of summer, back to school, and after school programs including career vision day, a week long back to school kick-off event, and field day. We also hosted more than 1,400 youth and families during our monthly lit fridays and other youth events such as an easter egg hunt, summer bbq, christmas giveaway, etc. 2023 also saw the start of the durfee scholars initiative (dsi) a program to help foster better communications/relations between Life Remodeled and the afformentioned schools in which students completed various attendance and academic goals to gain tickets that could be traded in for access to lit friday events and other incentives held at the schools during the school day.finally, Life Remodeled was able to continue to engage with our Life Remodeled youth alliance who continue to grow in their leadership abilities and advisory capacity.

Six day project - each year, Life Remodeled mobilizes thousands of volunteers over six days to clear blight and beautify several square miles surrounding our current opportunity hub. Throughout the process of unifying for a common mission, participants from both the city and the suburbs begin to realize how much they respect and need each other which is a catalyst for long-term relationships and partnerships.in 2023, we mobilized 5,000+ volunteers to clear blight on 293 blocks, mow over 500 residential lawns, and deliver 1,000 freshly potted mums to community members in the neighborhood surrounding the old cooley high school building during our 13th annual six day project (october 2-7, 2023).

Life Remodeled continued focus on community engagement. In the durfee community this included hosting events such as our annual summer block party. Life Remodeled also focused engagement efforts in the community surrounding the old cooley high school building which pivoted toward the middle of the year to the denby community, including turkey drives for thanksgiving and refrigerator giveaways for community members in need. There was also the next level nonprofit program to help coach other non-profits to use the tools lr has used to succeed in the nfp space, the dexter facade project to help revitalize various businesses along the dexter corridor, and prom Remodeled, a fundraising and community event meant to bring donors and community members together to foster communication and understanding at the dis