By Adam Graham, The Detroit News
DETROIT — Big Sean was not only on hand for Tuesday’s opening of the new Boys & Girls Club at Michigan Central, but the Detroit rapper received a surprise induction into the Boys and Girls Club’s Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the facility Tuesday night.
He was joined at the soiree by fellow music superstar (and Boys & Girls Club Hall of Famer) Usher, Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield and various other contributors to the new 15,000-square-foot center for youth empowerment. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist swung through earlier in the day.
“What a journey, right?” Big Sean said while addressing the crowd of around 150 people gathered Tuesday night, which included his mother, father and brother, along with various other corporate partners, friends, and VIP types. “It’s been a long journey, but it’s a new beginning.”
He was talking about his own rise from Boys & Girls Club member to a partner in the new facility, along with Usher, whom he sat courtside next to at the Detroit Pistons game later in the evening. Along with their foundations — Big Sean’s Sean Anderson Foundation, Usher’s New Look — the pair donated $1 million toward a new entertainment production hub at the center, located on Michigan Central’s fifth floor.
It’s one of the key features at the rehabilitated train station’s new Boys & Girls Club, which also houses a special FX lab, drone training spaces, a youth-run retail marketplace, a literary and storytelling lounge and more. Programming at the space is scheduled to begin on Feb. 9.
The goal of the space is to educate and empower youth, said Roderick Hardamon, a board chair of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Detroit.
“An investment like this does not happen by accident. It happens with intentionality,” he said. “Why? Because our youth deserve it.”
Hardamon was one of several speakers at Tuesday’s opening event, along with Boys & Girls Club of Greater Detroit’s president and CEO Shawn H. Wilson; Michigan Central’s acting CEO Carolina Pluszczynski; the Ballmer Group’s Temeca Simpson; Ilitch Sports and Entertainment president and CEO Ryan Gustafson; and New York Times Bestselling Author Shaka Senghor, who has a literary lounge inside the space named after him.
“To say I’m honored to be here today would be an understatement,” said Senghor, who called the room dedication “a testament to the power of the written word.” Images from pages from Senghor’s diary are blown up and cover the walls inside the room, along with portraits and quotes from authors such as James Baldwin and Toni Morrison.
Corporate partners of the new facility include Apple, Ilitch Sports + Entertainment, Bank of America and StockX. Tuesday’s event was sponsored in part by the Eddie-Mae Robbie Foundation, founded by Detroit hip-hop artist and producer Nick Speed and his sister, Lauren Speed-Hamilton.
“We wanted to support the creative young kids,” Speed said of his involvement in the event. He’s a former Boys & Girls Club member himself.
“I feel like I wanted to give back, that was very important to me,” said Speed. “I wouldn’t be who I am today without the Boys & Girls Club. They let us have freedom and taught us to be creative, and I’m here to support that.”
Usher, looking eternally youthful and effortlessly cool behind a pair of dark shades, spoke of the importance of Boys & Girls Clubs to his own life, and of being present at the center not just at its opening, but in the future.
“This is not my last time here,” he told the crowd, “and it absolutely should not be your last time here.”
He said the Boys & Girls Club — he spent his formative years at a Club in Chattanooga, Tennessee — offered him an opportunity to dream, and an experience of mentorship.
“Everybody needs a coach,” Usher said.
Big Sean, who playfully teased Sheffield about their ongoing rivalry at his summertime Boys & Girls Club D.O.N. Weekend events, said there’s a special significance of the new facility being a part of Michigan Central.
“It’s so inspiring, because it’s living proof that it’s never over,” he said of the renovated train station. “You get to the end, and the end is just the beginning of something else.”
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