My name's Dwan Dandridge I’m a proud lifelong Detroiter, a father of three. Husband of one beautiful wife. My grandfather on my mom's side... that's where the name Dandridge comes from, the Dandridge family members were like - slaves on the plantations of George Washington's wife's father. So George Washington's father-in-law, his name was Dandridge. They owned - my family. So, you know, when you ask me to be a proud American, my story is a little bit different. So when I hear of George Washington and him being a hero to most, I kind of view him in a different light. 

Me and my wife opted to choose a last name for our family. That last name is Uhuru, we wanted to pass a name on to our children that they'd be proud of... And Uhuru actually means freedom... so we were very intentional about, like, letting them know, that when you call... When you call them by last name, you're speaking freedom to them. Once you get to taste freedom and breathe air as a free person, it feels so good and it's so liberating… that you just want somebody else to experience it with you. But I think that that's what set me on a path to go back and share the freedom experience with other people. So, you know, I spent a lot of time early on trying to figure out a way to how to target young men that had, you know, made some bad decisions. My first huge initiative was I turned a real estate investment property into transitional housing for young men who wanted to stop selling drugs. And we would take them in and teach them a trade. Have daily Bible study and prayer with them and just try to build a community around them that would show them that they had other options. 

I get to manage a project that brings 10,000 plus volunteers in to tackle blight and beautify 300 city blocks over the course of six days. It's a crazy time and the work is really taxing, but it's very rewarding. You get to see people from different walks of life and when we live in a time where we focus on the things that we disagree on, during this time, we get to see people focus on what they agree on and get to see what we can actually accomplish if we focus on what we agree on and are passionate about and we come together and set aside those differences.