Week 4: Love is in the Air – Detroit Community-Engaged Research Program

Week 4: Love is in the Air

Asalam Alaikum!

This week I chose to delay posting all in the pursuit of love… not my love, but the love of a beautiful couple from our community.

Trying my best to blend in…

This shoot was incredible. We had tears, we had laughter, and we even had some rain, all on Detroit’s beautiful riverfront. We had so many great friends from the community show up to celebrate and support the young couple as well. This celebration was truly a testament to how tight knit this community is.

It all started a week ago. The groom to be approached me in the office with a beautiful diamond ring, and even though he wasn’t proposing to me, I still caught myself blushing. He stated with a big old grin on his face that he was gonna be proposing, and he proudly laid out the plan, from the white roses to the carousel ride. I could see the love that he held for this woman from how thoughtful and thorough his plan was to the patience he had to make sure that everything would go smoothly and just the way his soon-to-be wife would want it. This was clearly something that had been on his mind for a while now, and I was ecstatic that he came to us asking to film it.

The proposal itself was beautiful, but what made the entire event so meaningful to me was the support and love shown by the community. Everyone at the proposal was someone that you would frequently see at community events and on the block, and their love was clear as day. It really does take a village, and that’s something that I see every day with DREAM of Detroit and its community.

This proposal truly emphasizes how much my work with DREAM of Detroit as an intern and a storyteller intersects. This week we launched a fundraising campaign for a home rehabilitation in the neighborhood for our community land trust. In simple terms, a community land trust is a non-profit that takes ownership of the land and keeps it in trust for the community as a means to keep housing on that land affordable for generations to come. The goal of this fundraiser is to rehab a house in the neighborhood so that the newly engaged couple will have a place to call home by the winter! To learn more check out our launchgood page at https://www.launchgood.com/campaign/lets_put_a_family_in_a_home__make_housing_a_human_right#!/

3 thoughts on “Week 4: Love is in the Air”

  1. Hi Buraq,
    Congratulations to the newlyweds! This sounds very family oriented and its great that you were able to witness and be apart of it. DREAM of Detroit sounds like their having an amazing time!

  2. Hi Buraq!
    Thank you so much for sharing this story. Your description of the proposal was vivid and beautiful. I can tell that you’re doing an amazing job as both an intern and a storyteller.

  3. Hey Buraq, this is beautiful! It is amazing that your organization helped to carry out this proposal but is also helping to create affordable housing for this couple. What a cool experience for you!

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