Detroiter's love for his city and Obama come together during festival

James Ford speaks proudly about participating in the 16th annual ARISE Detroit! Neighborhoods Day. However, for Ford, the number 44, not 16, is the number that moves him to action, as Ford will demonstrate during his Obama Weekend Festival, which began Friday and will extend through Sunday.

Inspired by the 44th President of the United States, Ford’s event is taking place on the grounds of the Barack Obama Leadership Academy at 10800 E. Canfield. Planned activities include daily children’s parades; youth career seminars; goods and food sold by local vendors; music and dancing; and more. And during all of the festivities, Ford wants the former president of the United States, who was born on Aug. 4, 1961, to be top of mind for everyone in attendance, particularly children.

“Children emulate who you celebrate,” proclaimed Ford. “Talk about Barack Obama and you will see another Barack Obama. I don’t think our people really understand what Barack Obama truly meant to us, but our kids need someone positive that we can focus back on. Listen, I have asked this question on television shows and during speaking engagements: Find me a better role model than Barack Obama; find me one! No one has been able to answer that question in eight years.

“He (Obama) said he could be the president and that is what he went after, so we need to celebrate and emulate him. Someone who takes part in our Obama Weekend Festival is going to say, ‘I can do that’ — it could be a girl.  And anyone of any race can be like Barack Obama in their own way; the person doesn’t have to go into politics to do it.”

Most of the more than 150 events and activities that make up this year’s Neighborhoods Day lineup will take place Saturday, but for the 75-year-old Ford, the pride of 12th Street and Collingwood, Neighborhoods Day is more than a mere 24-hour time span.And when he mapped out a plan for his Obama Weekend, Ford envisioned beginning each of the three days with a children’s parade.

“Look, your children watch the Macy’s Parade, they watch the Detroit parade; every kid has seen a parade, but how many kids have been in one?,” asked Ford, who spent 30 years with Detroit youth as a Detroit school teacher and baseball coach at Henry Ford and Redford high schools. “I’m all about having our own, right here in Detroit, so let’s have our own children’s parade in Detroit. We’ve never done this before at our festival, and it might not look like the most organized thing, but I hope the kids have fun and come away with lifelong memories.”

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Ford’s vision of a children’s parade entails youth of varying ages carrying banners with the names of neighborhood businesses and other positive community symbols as they take a stroll around the Barack Obama Leadership Academy, a K-8 public charter school. And once the stroll around the school is completed, the youth head inside for career seminars focusing on what Ford calls “marketable life skills.” However, as the 1 o’clock hour approached Friday, the children expected to participate in the parade had not arrived, and there was talk among the 50 or so adults that had already gathered that the children's parade may not happen. But 71-year-old Janice Waters was not about to let a change in plans dampen her spirits.

“We’re kicking off Neighborhoods Day today and just like the first pitch in any game, everything might not be in its rightful place, but this is about continued effort, working together, ironing out differences, and then anything is possible,” stated Waters, who believed enough in Ford’s festival idea that she assumed the responsibility of being director of his Obama Weekend this year.

Waters confided that during Obama’s eight years in office she could never find enough confidence to write him a letter. However, with a wide smile, Waters said she had no inhibitions when she ordered two life-sized cutouts of her all-time favorite president and former First Lady Michelle Obama standing together, which were on display at the festival Friday.

“We’re honoring the 44th President of the United States and his wife and I hope everyone — kids and adults — take a picture with them and be inspired,” Waters explained. “The President had a vision and we’re tapping into it a little bit just by coming together.”

Waters’ statements about using a Neighborhoods Day event to spark community progress echoed feedback provided Tuesday by Detroiter Tonya Wall at the ARISE Detroit! headquarters within the Samaritan Center located at 5555 Conner.

“The ARISE Detroit! Neighborhoods Day is always an opportunity to get our community engaged,” said Wall, vice president of the Regent Park Community Association, as she was picking up a Neighborhoods Day banner customized for her association along with t-T-shirts from the ARISE Detroit! headquarters.

In the past, Walls’ association has performed a variety of activities on Neighborhoods Day, including neighborhood cleanups, ice cream socials and back-to-school rallies. This year, the group will not have its official Neighborhoods Day event until Aug. 27, but Walls says it will be well worth the wait given the importance of the planned community project.

“We will be working on a safe-passage-to-school project,” Walls stated. “We have two schools (Fisher Magnet Lower Academy and Fisher Magnet Upper Academy) located within our boundaries and they surround the Heilmann Rec Center, so that’s an area we like to keep clean; we make sure the houses that are open are boarded up; and then we encourage the students to use those pathways to school.”

The fact that Ford’s and Walls’ organizations, along with a few other groups will be having activities that take place a little before or even after today’s outpouring of events across the city is a sign that the community impact generated by Neighborhoods Day has increased during 16 years, says ARISE Detroit! Board Chairman Dr. George Swan III.

“These groups have embraced Neighborhoods Day as a way of thinking, living and being, not just on one day, but every day,” Swan stated.  “That’s a very powerful statement and very infectious.”

A Detroit Volunteer Service Tradition Continues

What: 16th Annual ARISE Detroit! Neighborhoods Day. Since 2007, on the first Saturday in August, ARISE Detroit! has presented Neighborhoods Day, which has provided a platform for nearly 3,000 activities and community projects addressing education; public safety and public health; youth development; arts and culture; services for seniors, and more. ARISE Detroit! Executive Director and Founder Luther Keith reports that more than 150 Neighborhoods Day events will take place across the city this year, with most events occurring today.

For more information: To view a complete listing of the scheduled 16th Annual ARISE Detroit! Neighborhood Days events, please visit https://www.arisedetroit.org/copy-of-neighborhoods-day

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Obama Weekend Festival in Detroit celebrates former president