This story is part of Equity in Our Parks, a series spotlighting the people and organizations advancing equity through southeast Michigan’s parks and related programming. It is supported by Oakland County Parks and Recreation, Wayne County Parks and Recreation, Huron-Clinton Metroparks, City of Detroit, and Detroit Riverfront Conservancy.
In addition to health centers, food banks, and community centers, southeast Michigan’s parks are becoming increasingly important hubs for promoting health equity in their communities.
Residents of Detroit, and many in surrounding communities across the metropolitan area, face a variety of unique health challenges. In black-majority Detroit, black adults are significantly more likely than white adults to have high blood pressure, diabetes, or obesity, according to the Detroit Health Equity Education Resource. In Wayne County overall, 14% of adults and 22% of children experience food insecurity. And according to Detroit’s 2018 Community Health Assessment, Detroit residents are 10% more likely than Michigan residents overall to lack regular physical activity.
But several programs in the region’s parks are working to change that in the communities that need health support the most, offering free physical fitness programs, food distributions, accessible new facilities and more. Barbara Blum-Alexander, director of community health at Henry Ford Health, describes parks as free, accessible places where people can practice healthy behaviors.
“Parks, especially neighborhood parks that are within walking distance of where people live, just improve the quality of life for people,” Blum-Alexander said. “It’s kind of an intergenerational place where people can go and do things that promote health in a safe environment.”
From basketball to free fruit and vegetables in parks
One of the most robust health-focused projects in the region’s parks is the Detroit Pistons Foundation’s Neighbors Program. Launched in 2019, the program has grown to include a wide range of free, weekly fitness programs in 12 parks across the city of Detroit. Patrick Duggan, the Pistons’ community and social responsibility and foundation manager, says the program grew out of the Pistons’ efforts to renovate 60 basketball courts in the city’s parks. He says the Pistons “didn’t want to just build the courts and leave the neighborhoods and the parks alone.”
Steve KossPatrick Duggan on a basketball court at Rouge Park.
“There are a lot of people doing great work downtown,” he says. “… We felt like we could make a big impact on every corner of the city.”
Duggan says the Pistons Foundation has tried to build strong relationships with neighborhood groups near each of the parks the program serves, helped in part by the foundation’s partnership with the Detroit Parks Coalition. He says the classes offered through the Neighbors program — which range from Zumba to yoga to skateboarding to basketball — are based on “what people want.”
Steve KossPeople play basketball during a Pistons Neighbors program in Rouge Park.
“We contact the programmer, we sort it out, you help us spread the word and we sort it out,” he says.
According to Duggan, Eastern Market’s weekly free fruit and vegetable distributions in select parks are one of the most popular parts of the program.
“People can’t believe that they can just walk into the park that day and do their shopping there,” he says.
Steve KossAn Eastern Market where products are distributed in Rouge Park.
Nicole Morba, food access manager at the Eastern Market Partnership, says the ability to distribute free food has been “life-changing,” not only for local residents but also for her and her staff. As inflation has risen, she says people are less likely to seek out fresh produce and spend extra money on it.
“Any opportunity to give away fruits and vegetables and get more fruits and vegetables into people’s fridges and stomachs is vital,” she says.
Sally Petrella, president of Friends of Rouge Park, has been working with the Pistons to offer Neighbors programs in Rouge Park since 2019. She says Neighbors is “the perfect program” for residents of the Rouge Park area because “quality recreation” and “fresh, healthy food” are both huge needs in the community.
Steve KossSally Petrella in Rouge Park.
“Rouge Park is surrounded by homes and it’s in a community of color, a low-income community,” Petrella said. “A third of Detroiters don’t even have a car, but Rouge Park is so accessible and it’s right in an area that has a huge need for programming for all the youth in the neighborhood, for all the seniors. So this programming really helps meet that need.”
Increase in access to free fitness in Norway
West of Detroit, Westland and Wayne County staff are joining with residents to improve health and fitness opportunities in and around Venoy-Dorsey Park in Westland’s historic Norwayne neighborhood. Built quickly in 1942 to house workers at Ypsilanti Township’s Willow Run Bomber Plant, Norwayne has fallen victim to blight, school closures and general disinvestment. Over the past 15 years, however, residents have worked to revitalize their neighborhood.
A major sign of this is Jefferson Barns Community Vitality Center, a city facility that opened in 2015 in the former Jefferson Barns Elementary School. The center helps fill the gap left by the 2012 closure of Westland’s Bailey Recreation Center. It offers free fitness programs ranging from boxing classes at Kronk Boxing Gym to pickleball.
“Anyone is welcome to come,” says Joanne Campbell, director of housing and community development for the city of Westland. “Money is not a barrier.”
Now, Wayne County is working to build on Jefferson Barns’ successes by improving the health, fitness and exercise options at Venoy-Dorsey Park, just across the road from the community center. Elizabeth Iszler, director of planning and design for Wayne County Parks, says the county’s goal is to “reactivate” the park, which currently has soccer fields and a baseball field but few other amenities. Iszler says the county plans to add an outdoor gym, a historic plaza, playgrounds, picnic areas, new sports fields and nature education spaces to the park to “increase the outdoor recreation and outdoor space for community center programming.” She also hopes to add a walking path to make it easier for people to cross Dorsey Road between the community center and the park.
“We’re hoping that it brings more people to the area, and then they learn that there’s stuff going on at the community center,” Campbell said. “So we’re hoping that it just brings more people to the area.”
Iszler sees the project as a way to create equal opportunities for a community that needs more easily accessible resources to stay healthy.
“Some parks have gotten more attention than others,” she said. “… It’s incredibly important to us and to (Wayne County Parks) Director (Alicia Bradford) that our parks become equitable.”
“One of the many ways we try to achieve our mission”
Blum-Alexander says parks play an important role in numerous health-related programs that Henry Ford Health offers and supports. For example, she notes that Henry Ford Health offers nutrition education programs at several local facilities, including parks, but efforts like Eastern Market’s produce distributions help amplify the impact of that work. 
Steve KossWorkers unload a van for the distribution of produce to Eastern Market in Rouge Park.
“We teach people what to eat, how to buy food, how to store food, how to prepare food,” she says. “But … if they can’t do the things we teach them, then we’re kind of failing.”
Another example is Henry Ford Health’s Farmers Market Food Navigator program at the Hope Village Farmers Market in Detroit’s Cool Cities Park. A Henry Ford Health dietitian visits the park weekly to provide nutrition education, help people navigate the market, and provide free recipes and tastings based on available produce.
“People taste different things. Then they come back and say, ‘What do you have for me this week?’” Blum-Alexander says. “And then sometimes we hear … that there are people who collect all the recipes every week.”
Dana Jay, manager of public relations and media relations at Henry Ford Health, expects parks to continue to play an important role in promoting the health of the residents of southeastern Michigan who need it most.
Steve KossPeople play basketball during a Pistons Neighbors program in Rouge Park.
“The more we can push for programs that enable people to be healthy, particularly in the city of Detroit, the more we can help advance our mission of addressing health care disparities,” she said. “It’s just one of the many ways we’re trying to achieve our mission.”
click here to read more from the Equity in Our Parks series.
Patrick Dunn is the lead writer for the Equity in Our Parks series. He is also the editor-in-chief of To concentrate and a freelance writer and editor from Ypsilanti.
Photos by Steve Koss.
