- [Announcer] Coming up on "One Detroit."

We'll show you how three Metro Detroit School Districts are planning to commemorate the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Plus, we'll get a preview of this year's Detroit Policy Conference from Detroit Regional Chamber CEO, Sandy Baruah.

Also ahead, we'll examine the role of the Black church in promoting mental wellness among young people, and we'll give you some ideas on how you may want to spend your weekend.

It's all coming up next on "One Detroit."

- [Narrator 1] From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

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- [Narrator 2] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at DTEFoundation.com.

- [Narrator 1] Nissan Foundation, and viewers like you.

(light upbeat music) - [Announcer] Just ahead on "One Detroit," we'll hear about the focus of this year's Detroit Policy Conference from Detroit Regional Chamber President and CEO, Sandy Baruah.

Plus, we'll talk about the mental health challenges facing young African Americans and how the church can provide refuge and resources.

And we'll look at what's happening around town this weekend and beyond.

But first up, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is Monday, January 20th.

It's a date to reflect on the life and legacy of the civil rights leader and his contributions to social justice and community service.

In that same spirit, three Metro Detroit School Districts are coming together on MLK Day to give back to the community.

I got the details on the event, which is called A Day On, Not A Day Off.

(light music) - We're here to talk about the upcoming holiday, the MLK Day celebration.

So just tell us what the event is, where it's happening, when it's happening.

- So the history of the event really hits home for me.

I worked in the Berkeley School District in 2017 when the very first event happened here in Royal Oak.

I was assigned by my superintendent in Berkeley to represent the district at this endeavor with Shawn Lewis-Lakin, the then superintendent here in Royal Oak.

And now since 2017, the event has really grown and we now include the Clawson School District as well as our municipalities in the cities that we represent as school districts.

Each year, it features community service projects that we assemble onsite.

We collect donations for several weeks before the event in our school districts and around our cities, and then our volunteers help us to sort those hundreds and hundreds of items.

Because while we get the donations in, some of our charities only want very specific items, so more hands help out.

And so we do have our volunteers work on that.

Over the years, we've had guest speakers, we have student productions, both musically and in video.

We also have a march within our communities, which is a newer feature to our event.

And we've very proudly rotated the event between the Berkeley School District and Royal Oak Schools over the years.

And we anticipate that it'll be hosted in Clawson next year.

So we really wanted it to be a regional impact.

We all service community organizations within our own cities, but we also know that in the Metro Detroit area, it's very rich for service agencies that support the families in need in our community.

And so we wanted a broader footprint.

So the initial collaborative between the school districts allowed us to have more parents, more staff, and more students involved.

We had PTA organizations, our foundations contribute, our teacher unions contribute.

And our phrase of it's A Day On, Not A Day Off, really talks about, yes, it's a day off from school, but it really means a lot to us to honor his legacy, honor Dr. King's legacy, and to also understand what impact we can have in the community.

Another key goal for the event is that it isn't just about one day, it's not one day a year, it's really how we live our lives and how we serve our communities all year long.

- How important is it to get young people involved in these types of service events and just being able to serve a community in general?

- We really want the ideals of the day and the holiday to mean more to them than one article they read once a year every January.

And so we believe that by talking about it and showing them what they have to offer for their community, how it fits in our curriculum, how we learn from our history and from our past, and how we influence the future adults that will be leading our world someday that are in our schools, it really means a lot to us to have the students involved.

- What's the part of this event and these days even leading up to it or after it that really sticks with you?

- I think seeing the impact of our service to these community organizations, really bringing everyone together, sorting those donations, and then literally tons of food, tons of blankets, all kinds of toiletry supplies, we're making lunches this year for a food pantry to be able to distribute.

All of those things I think just really help us understand how we can be helpful and how fortunate we really are in our schools and in our individual communities, and how we can be helpful to others.

And so when we make those deliveries and it isn't very public, we go to the back door, we go to the loading dock and we drop off, but just driving away knowing that our community's made such a difference, and it also does inspire us to do it in June or do it in September and not just January.

- How important is it for people to realize that they can do this all year round?

That there's always an opportunity to serve their community?

- Yeah, so it's very important.

One year in planning the event, we actually were not able to go to some of the community organizations because they were full.

They said, "We really don't have a need right now, but we have a need at the other times of the school year, so if you could send your groups then."

One year we were able to help a community organization in September by going into the neighborhoods and doing cleanup efforts.

That was tied to our MLK event, although it took place in August and September that year, so that we were able to help them when they needed us, not when the holiday took place.

- How many people are you expecting to come out and, you know, participate this year?

- So there have been years when we've had keynote speakers and then of course COVID hit and we had to do an alternate event that year.

But we still were able to help community organizations the best we could during that time.

The attendance has varied, but I believe in years we've had over 200 folks come out, staff, students, families, and even people from the community that aren't specifically involved with the district, but they see the event, and it's something that meets their need and they do come out and help us.

That's why we say everyone is welcome, walk-ins are welcome, but hundreds of people collecting on the same day for the same purpose is very inspiring.

- How can people get involved with this year's events, next year's event, and things going on in between those things throughout the entire year?

- So, many of the organizations that are going to receive donations that we're collecting are listed on the website.

That website is hosted by the city of Royal Oak, it's romi.gov/mlk.

Folks can go there to make a monetary donation, to see the details for the day of the event that we have on January 20th, and then they can also make donations directly to the organizations.

We also take walk-ins, you don't have to sign up, there's no RSVP.

A light breakfast will be served on the day of the event.

It's really about the fellowship of getting people together collectively that day, deliver many blankets out to organizations after the fact, so we need volunteers to drive some of those donations around town.

So it really is a nice community event on the day, but because the website stays up all year long, folks can log in anytime and help those organizations.

- [Announcer] The Detroit Regional Chamber's Annual Detroit Policy Conference takes place on January 23rd at the Motor City Casino.

The event brings together hundreds of business, civic, and government leaders to examine the issues impacting the city and region's economic progress.

This year's theme is Driving the Innovation Economy.

"One Detroit" contributor, Nolan Finley of "The Detroit News" sat down with Chamber President and CEO, Sandy Baruah, to get a preview of the conference.

(lighthearted music) - Sandy Baruah, CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber, you've got your Policy Conference coming up at the Motor City Casino.

Tell me what we're gonna be talking about there this year.

- Yeah, so it's our Detroit Policy Conference, which is the conference that we created kind of as an outgrowth of the Mackinac Policy Conference to really focus on the Detroit region.

And it's something that obviously is a lot more accessible, we know going to the island can be a pain in the you know what, it can also cost a lot of money, so the Detroit Policy Conference is really geared towards our local issues.

And this year we're really focused on what the exciting new elements around the innovation economy mean for our region, really for the next 50 years.

- When we think about innovation, our mind doesn't automatically go to Detroit.

I think we think more about Silicon Valley and the coast, but here in Detroit, thanks to the auto industry, thanks to some really major universities and medical centers doing a lot of innovative things here as well.

- Absolutely.

In fact, people forget that the first patent and trademark office outside of Washington, DC was placed in Detroit, Michigan just because the level of innovation coming out of the companies in this region has been so high for so many decades.

What's changing, one of the key things that is changing is that we are now moving from company-based innovation, which is still absolutely critical, but we're moving to what they have like in Silicon Valley or the Research Triangle in North Carolina and these open innovation nodes.

The new Michigan Central new lab facility, which is just the first of a few that are coming online, Henry Ford Health and MSU are partnering for a new healthcare innovation lab up on Grand Boulevard right outside the Henry Ford main Hospital.

Dan Gilbert is building a new innovation complex in partnership with TechTown over at Wayne State.

And then of course, University of Michigan themselves is building a brand new innovation center right in Downtown Detroit.

- So what's driving all this, Sandy, I mean, why are we seeing this level of innovative activity in Detroit?

What's behind it and who's behind it?

- Nolan, that's a fabulous question.

And, you know, what's behind it is it's the next step.

We have an embarrassment of riches here.

Think of it.

We have three R1 universities in this state, MSU, Wayne State, and U of M, all pretty closely related.

We have a fourth R1 university up at Michigan Tech that's soon to be an R1 later on this year.

Having four R1 universities in this state is a huge economic driver.

It's a huge innovation driver.

And then we are now attracting young, talented people.

We need to attract a lot more.

But those are some of the things that are changing.

- Let's get back to that.

But those universities, all under new leadership now, and will they all be participating in this conference and what do they bring?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So we are anchoring our conference around Richard Florida, the author of the "Creative Class," who's been a long time friend and consultant to the Chamber.

He's going to be leading the discussion with the three R1s, you know, President Espy at Wayne State, President Guskiewicz at MSU, and President Ono from University of Michigan.

All three are going to be there in person.

We signed an agreement with the University of Michigan up at the Mackinac Policy Conference last year to start building out this innovation echo system.

So what you're going to see at the Detroit Policy Conference is kind of the beginning of the beginning of how we're going to work together with the R1 universities, with business leaders, people like Bob Riney, who will be there, economic development people, people like Ned Staebler, Kevin Johnson, Kofi Bonner, how are we all gonna work together to build out this echo system?

- And it's not all automotive.

I mean, the medical piece of this is rather significant too.

- Absolutely.

It's FinTech, it's medical sciences, and healthcare.

You know, it's AI, you know, and it's not automotive maybe in the traditional way, but you think about all the technology that goes into like autonomous vehicles or electrification, right?

That doesn't just apply to automotive, that applies to a whole range of growing industries on the planet.

- So let's get back to talent.

I mean, we are still losing more of our college graduates than we keep, and we are still lagging in job creation.

How does these innovative efforts play into attracting talented people and attracting job creators?

- Yeah, so the numbers are actually a little fuzzy.

What we're finding is that Michigan retains the dead average of its college graduates.

What we do lose, however, is disproportionate of our really high flyers.

People on the STEM fields, people in the medical fields, people with advanced degrees like in finance and things like that.

We're losing too many of those, what we need to do is make sure that young people, young talented people know that they're gonna be supported when they come here, that they're gonna have venture capital if they wanna start a business, that there are systems and entities in place to connect them not only to each other, so they can create kind of social networks, which is what happens naturally in Silicon Valley, but also to job opportunities.

- Well, so like Mackinac in the spring, this is a policy conference.

What policies do we need to support this effort?

- Yeah, so we're kind of, as a business community, we're kind of dividing and conquering.

Our friends at Business Leaders For Michigan, they're taking the lead on trying to create a statewide umbrella policy that really focuses on driving innovation, attracting these new young, talented people and the companies that they bring with them.

What we're focused on with the University of Michigan and the other two R1 university presidents and others, is how do we build out this echo system?

How do we connect the business community with the philanthropic community, with the education community, with all the services that are there?

And think about, you know, you've got the Center for American Mobility, you've got Mcity, you've got the airport, you've got Ford's new development in Dearborn.

I mean, you know, all this stuff, you start connecting these pieces together, we make the Research Triangle look like a pretty small triangle.

- So there's a money piece of this too.

I mean, these innovators, these startup companies, they need capital.

What's the venture capital environment here?

- So the venture capital environment in Michigan is growing and is growing pretty smartly.

In fact, it's one of the fastest growing in the country.

And you can talk to our friends at Renaissance, Chris Rizik, and others, and they'll tell you that there's a lot more there, but we still need to do more.

I mean, Michigan continues to be a story and Detroit continues to be a story of great progress, but we still have so much more to do.

- [Announcer] January is Mental Wellness Month, a time to focus on emotional wellbeing and self-care for the year ahead.

Recently, "American Black Journal's" "Black Church in Detroit" Series looked at how the church can help teens and young adults address mental health challenges.

Host Stephen Henderson spoke with two members of Detroit's religious community about the church's role in improving young people's emotional, psychological, and social health.

(light music) - I'm the father of two children who just got out of teenage years and now are gonna be in their early 20s.

So I remember all of these questions and all of these challenges that kids these days face.

And the thing that I have struggled the most with is how different they are from the things that I can remember struggling with when I was a teenager, I don't know, some 40 years ago.

I don't wanna talk about how long ago that was, but it's just different now.

And there are all kinds of things that we don't have, we didn't have to think about then that we do have to think about now.

So I guess that's where I want to start.

Ashley, we'll start with you.

Tell us about what you hear from young people here now, what you see with them, and how different it all is.

- So I'd like to start off by saying that teen suicide has been identified as a national crisis, and so much of it, even the Biden-Harris administration is really doing a lot to really counter this.

For me personally, it hits home, because my son, who's 13 years old, and he's a young Black male who goes to a predominantly European school.

I don't subscribe to Black white, but European school.

And what I've noticed is the impact of AI.

So if you look at the history of the Black church, when you talk about anti-Black or racism manifesting, there were signs, there was this overt manifestation of it.

While some of it is still overt, a lot of it is covert.

So my own son, I didn't even know he was dealing with depression, thank God they had those forms with the doctors when they do their annual physicals, because I had no idea, but part of it was because of bullying.

And he talked about how in social media, those algorithms, he was noticing within his friend group.

And so then there was all of these different racial, and not just towards African Americans, but towards other racial ethnic groups as well.

And so as a result, the bullying began to increase not only through the perception of anti-Blackness within social media, but also in terms of manifesting within his friend group.

And so what I think is, or what I'm seeing is I'm bringing more present to is the fact that the Black church is still the pinnacle point of making sure that our children actually understand what is Christ-rooted, which is grace, mercy, humanity, but also what's African-centered, you know, knowing that you actually are community-oriented, that you come from a long lineage that transcends just the European Slave Trade that began our history, which actually doesn't begin there.

I could go on and on, but the reality of it is a lot of the history told in America only starts with the narrative of slavery.

So getting back to our actual roots, and the great dynasties of which we come from to actually build and cultivate the identities of our children is more necessary now.

- Mikiah, tell us what you see at Triumph and what kind of things you hear and notice with young people.

- Absolutely.

I think that's a phenomenal question.

So one of the things I see, and to be honest, not only at Triumph, but just within my community, being a 26-year-old that does a lot of activity in the Metro Detroit area, a lot of our young people are eager for God, they're eager for Christ, they're eager to be a part of a church, they're eager to be a part of that community, they just don't know where to start.

And I think that is the role of the church, especially in this season, is to hold their hand and give them a GPS, I think that's what the church should be.

It's a GPS to kind of just help young people navigate and walk through life.

A lot of them have questions about mental health, a lot of people raise up questions about depression.

Is God mad at me because I'm depressed, because my mental health is declining?

And so I think that the church should serve in a role of holding their hand and walking with so many young people and just guiding them to what that looks like to integrate faith and mental health.

- Yeah, so Mikiah, I wanna talk a little about the hesitancy in our community to acknowledge that mental health is a real concern and a concern not just worthy of voicing, but worthy of seeking help for.

There's a lot of stigma that attaches to it, and that gets magnified, I think sometimes in our community.

How do churches help young people kind of confront that part of it by just saying, "Look, it's okay, however you feel, you need to talk about it."

- Absolutely.

I think to just understanding that God has left us with the Bible, the Word is God.

And so starting with the most important thing, the Word, and being able to draw and pull from the Word scriptures and principles and lessons to make applicable to today's situations and different battles.

Because even though it is a document or a text, or a book that is old, it's timeless, right?

And so there's scriptures that we can pull from.

I mean, even the Proverbs talk about seeking wise counsel.

So I think when we start at the Word, that, again, it's a navigation system, it's a guide to help people address those principles and those questions.

Because a lot of the answers that people are looking for is found in a book that people won't open up and read.

And I think that if we start with the Word of God, it helps us to have a more clear understanding of some of the things and the battles that we deal with, especially on a mental level.

- Just hearing what Black church is doing.

And I wanna encourage anybody watching this, you could drop your children off with us.

We are going to literally help- - Take care of them, right?

- I even thought about the Girl Scouts.

We have all these mentorship programs, we got piano players, we got all these Money Matters programs.

But what I wanna say is that what we don't recognize with mental health is that it's not just an issue that can be solved solely by the church, which that's why I'm grateful to be under the leadership of Pastor Anthony, Pastor Reverend Dr. Wendell Anthony because he constantly reminds us that our call is not just to say, you know, be a holy hope dealer or to say God bless you, but to also do the political action that is required to cultivate the society so that our youth can thrive.

- [Announcer] Let's turn now to what's happening in Metro Detroit this weekend.

From theater productions to a new museum exhibit, and a classical music performance, there's a variety of events to choose from.

Here's Peter Whorf of 90.9 WRCJ with today's "One Detroit Weekend."

- Hi there.

I'm Peter Whorf with 90.9 WRCJ, here to help you plan your days ahead with great events happening in Metro Detroit.

Let's start with the great sitcom "Golden Girls" coming to life on stage at the Fisher Theatre.

with "Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue."

The show parodies the beloved series with a lot of humor and antics.

You can catch the act through January 19th.

Friday, January 17th, you can see the Michigan Philharmonic at the Detroit Institute of Arts Friday Night Live!

The performance takes place in Rivera Court and features pieces by Debussy and Prokofiev with Conductor Nan Washburn.

A new exhibition opens January 17th at one of Detroit's gems, The Wright Museum.

"I, Charles H. Wright" is an exhibit focusing on the extraordinary life and accomplishments of the museum's founder.

Also, starting January 17th is The Novi Home Show where you can find anything you need for a renovation for your home.

Hundreds of vendors await to help you at Suburban Collection Showplace through January 19th.

And January 20th is MLK Jr. Day.

The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History is honoring Martin Luther King Jr. with Scientist Spotlight: MLK Jr. Day.

Event goers can meet U of M scientists of color and learn about their research.

There's also a lot more happening in Metro Detroit, so stick around to see a few other options.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

(light music) - [Announcer] That'll do it for this week's "One Detroit."

Thanks for watching.

Head to the "One Detroit" website for all the stories we're working on.

Follow us on social media, and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

- [Narrator 1] From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Narrator 2] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at DTEFoundation.com.

- [Narrator 1] Nissan Foundation, and viewers like you.

(light music) (soft music)