MarxModa

The Life-Free Model team is amazing to work with because everybody is so mission focused. Yes, we need our checks. Yes, we have to take care of our families, but that's not why we're here. We can go anywhere to make money, but being here and being able to collaborate as a team and make t We have a place where not only youth are being served, not only adults are being served, but it's a place where everyone can get served, so we serve as families. We've taken an old school building and we turned it into what we call an opportunity hub. We now have fielded with 38 amazing organizations. We are very particular on who is allowed to leave space here because every tenant is focused on either one or more of our three impact areas, w Prior to me coming here, What happened was DPSDD ended up merging the two schools together, and so t He's taken t When I first got here, right after the grand opening, the building was empty. We had one tenant and one tenant ready to sign. It was dark and it was under construction and it was very hot. At first I was What's going on? But then when they explained the vision to me of what they wanted t And so went from that to being hot in the s We try to keep as much original as possible. Sometimes that just can't be the case, right? But what we've done is we've repurposed a lot of t So And so we want to make sure that, especially for our al T And so we want to keep it gorgeous as is and just add a little life remodel and community flavor to it. So t We're doing t And so even when I say we're at 100% occupied, that happened two years ago during a pandemic. That tells a lot about the tenants who we have here and the populations that they're dedicated to serving. So now what we've learned about t We cannot stop here. We have to continue to grow. We're actually trying to purchase the old Cooley When you walk into a school building, you immediately t And so I t We're here because someone chose to walk in this door and get these services I t You're coming in here with people who love you, who adore you and want to help you succeed in life. T It basically, as far as I know, it gets used every day. About two o'clock, t If you're part of any of the programs, any of the tutoring programs in the building, you get time in here as a kid. It was one of Chris's ideas. Chris has a million ideas a second. It was at the end of one of our six day projects and t It was all stored. T So we got to use some really cool parts of the building. If you look at t So that was a hairdryer and a hand dryer in the women's bathroom. So in the women's locker room, it was all hooked up to the central heat. They did it back in 1927. It was really cool. And those little cones would move back and forth. And so instead of, Let's wire it for lights and turn it into a big, giant, cool light. We had a long, boring hallway that I said, let's do somet So went a little Alice in Wonderland here. T It's free washer and dryer. A survey was done a couple of years back. I don't remember exactly when, but it had to do with why the kids in the community were missing so many days of school. And the n And being in the community, knowing the kids that I know, knowing the areas that I know, I've been in the houses that I've been in, I get it. They don't have adequate pl I mean, their pl Well, we're going into our auditori They call it a cafeteria. So part auditori They used to have a kitchen back there, w This auditori We have a program called the LRYA, w They work a lot with Central and Durfee. They do all kinds of programs in here. They have a whole bunch of stuff that has to do with, I don't want anybody feeling embarrassed when they walk through our door or ashamed. I am from a community such as t I've been born and raised in Detroit. I probably relate to a lot of people walking through that door. I am no stranger to struggle, w T But now we're just going to make sure the other families get t