Video Testimony
Pastor K.C. Pierce II, Hopewell Church/NAACP Detroit
Rev. Sharon A. Buttry
Rev. Sharon A. Buttry, MSW retired in 2019 as Associate Director of Training and Education at the International Hope Center based in Hamtramck, Michigan. She is also recently retired as Global Consultant for Community Transformation with International Ministries, American Baptist Churches, USA. Rev. Buttry has extensive experience in urban community development in the United States and has led workshops in faith-based community development and trauma awareness/recovery in Poland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, India, Nagaland, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Philippines, Thailand, and the Middle East. Rev. Buttry also leads “Transforming White Privilege” workshops, addressing systemic racism. She earned graduate degrees in ministry and social work in Philadelphia (U PENN) between 1992- 1996 and was ordained in 1996 via the American Baptist Churches at Calvary Baptist Church of Norristown, PA.
Ronald Simpson-Bey
PRISON HATEBRAKER
RONALD SIMPSON-BEY, after his only son was murdered on his way to visit him in prison for Father’s Day, lobbied successfully for the fourteen-year-old killer to be tried not as an adult, but as a juvenile. Today Simpson-Bey —whose sentence was reversed after 27 years because he’d been wrong-fully convicted–is a celebrated leader in the national campaign to reform the American prison system. JustLeadershipUSA.org
Pastor Alonzo Bell
REDEEM DETROIT
Redeem Detroit is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that aims to revitalize neighborhoods in the city of Detroit. Our goal is to take vacant properties and rehabilitate them and then use them to help the citizens in the neighborhood where they are located.
We believe that everyone deserves a second chance and that’s why we train at-risk youth (teen parents), homeless veterans, and returning citizens in vocational and job readiness skills, and with these skills we help them become entrepreneurs or provide job placement as well as connect them to the resources they need. In return they help us clean up the neighborhood and eliminate blight.