We are starting to become an institution in Detroit. Our Sixth Annual Greater Detroit True Family Values Awards Banquet attracted the attention of the State, County and City offices, with representatives coming from all three to give welcome and congratulations. It was our largest banquet to date, with over 225 guests.

Bishop Jesse Edwards gave the keynote address, inspiring, challenging, and educating the audience on the "True" in True Family Values. The topic was most fitting, given the scandal rocking our city hall at the moment. With national news of our mayor caught in an affair with his female chief of staff, it was evident to all how much an impure relationship can damage not only a family but whole city.

We gave awards to eight couples in the community who were doing the opposite; they are serving others. We put ads in papers and sent press releases asking for nominations of couples who are doing good work in one of four categories: the Promotion of Marriage and Family, the Promotion of Abstinence before Marriage, Married Couples who serve the Community, and Community Service that Helps Families.

An example was the award we gave to Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett. She received the Promotion of Marriage Award. We were inspired to hear that she holds group marriage ceremonies on Sweetest Day and Valentines Day. These are done in three languages due to the diversity of the community. We chose her because her ceremonies not only promote marriage; they are international and also reflect Father Moon’s style of marriage ceremonies.

We focused on sponsorship this year. We have been to many large programs such as the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday banquets and have seen the multitude of sponsors supporting these events. We see banks, corporations, and hospitals supporting a Baptist preacher, Dr. King. We thought it is time to have the community support our efforts as well.

We consulted with Peter Hayes, our AFC brother in Kentucky. Based in part on his advice, we planned to start by asking each or our families to support our program by going to one business where they spend money, such as a car repair or a doctor, and ask them to buy an ad for our ad book. Well, our families did well. The dentist of one of our families bought a full-page ad. Our 2nd Gen sold business-card-size ads. We see it is more than possible to pay for the whole event through ads and sponsorships.

One note: It is interesting to see the changes in the city since we came back to Detroit as tribal messiahs some 17 years ago. The large entrenched religious groups in the city seemed so powerful and exclusive. Now their leadership is changing. For us True Family Values is something we see is lacking and, with us of the 6,000 Couples reaching our Silver 25th wedding anniversary last year, we have a strong foundation to stand up and offer a path to communities that need help.