Meet the New Board of MorningSide Community Organization

MCO held its annual board elections last month. Board officers serve two-year terms with staggered elections. This year we elected a President, 2nd Vice President, and Secretary. At-Large Directors serve one-year terms. Here are brief profiles of each of the board members serving our community.

Eric Dueweke
Eric Dueweke is MCO’s newly-elected President, but he’s certainly not new to MorningSide or to community work. Eric has served multiple terms on the MorningSide board over the past 24 years, including one term as MCO President in the late 1990s. He’s also President of the board of U-SNAPBAC, and has worked with Friends of the Alger Theater, Warren/Conner Development Coalition, Community Development Advocates of Detroit (CDAD), and the Three Mile Block Club.

Since retiring recently from his position as lecturer in urban and regional planning at University of Michigan, Eric looks forward to using those years of experience and expertise to the benefit of our community. His top priorities include unifying residents – “I respect everyone’s point of view and can usually bring folks to a consensus” – as well as cracking down on vacant property owners, giving more attention to the western half of MorningSide, (from Buckingham to Alter), and working more closely with other community groups in our area.

Twiana Odom
Twiana Odom, 1st Vice President of MCO, has served on our board for the past two years and is already well known to many MorningSiders. It was her initiative and leadership that got the MorningSide/Gleaners food distribution started three years ago. But that’s just one of the many neighborhood projects she’s involved in.

Twiana has knocked on hundreds of doors in MorningSide and Cornerstone as part of a Quicken Loans campaign to let residents know about property tax exemptions. She continues to help with property tax foreclosure prevention counseling through the Friends of the Alger Theater, where she also serves on their board. In addition, Twiana is on the Advisory Board of Brilliant Detroit, working on community health education programs for kids, and helping organize Brilliant Detroit’s gardening program.

Somehow Twiana still manages to find time to rehab the home she bought last year on Balfour and show her art work at various community events throughout the city.

Twiana’s priority for MCO over the next year is “to increase communication throughout our community. Even if people aren’t coming to our meetings, it’s important for them to find out what’s going on.”

Jeffrey D. Lewis II
Jeffrey D. Lewis II is beginning his second term as MCO’s 2nd Vice President. Residents may know him best as Editor-in-Chief of our organization’s monthly newsletter, which strives to get people involved, keep residents informed, and market our neighborhood. Jeff proudly describes The MorningSider as “one of the hottest news publications in the city.”

In addition to his journalistic skills, Jeff brings to the board his expertise in urban planning. He holds a degree in urban planning from Wayne State University.

He’s also an entrepreneur, working hard on his passion project – Morningside Café, which he envisions not just as a coffee shop, but as a community gathering place for people to enjoy live music as well. It’s been a dream deferred by the inevitable obstacles to getting a new business started, as well as the pandemic. But he remains optimistic. “You have to understand that everything you are working to achieve may not occur over night, the following week, or even a few months down the line, but if you stay committed to putting in the time to accomplish whatever goal you set out, ultimately you will see your goals come to fruition.”

Sharon Gray
Sharon Gray, a resident on Bedford for the past 33 years, brings extensive secretarial experience to her new role as Secretary of the organization. “I saw the need for the office of Secretary, and now is a good time for me to be involved in that way,” says Sharon. “I’m willing to put forth the effort and set aside time to do what’s necessary to help MCO move forward in establishing a better community.” Her priorities for MorningSide now are “to get more neighbors involved and listen to their concerns.”

In addition to participating in distribution of food boxes, Sharon has worked with Emerald Isles Community Development Corporation, helping to maintain the median of E. Outer Dr. between Mack and Chandler Park Dr.

When she’s not at her job as a Licensed Medicare Agent and Certified Loan Signing Agent/Notary, you may find Sharon walking or biking along the Riverwalk, watching movies, experimenting with vegan dishes, or reading self-help books.

Charon Nogues
When Charon Nogues, At-Large Director, moved here from Los Angeles several years ago, she came with energy and enthusiasm, working hard to rehab a bare-bones house on Nottingham, getting to know her neighbors, and diving into community work.

Charon now serves on the board of Friends of the Alger Theater, overseeing the marquee messages. She’s also on the Brilliant Detroit Advisory Board and their garden crew as well as the Healthlink Advisory Board. As if that weren’t enough to keep her busy, Charon is also a regular volunteer with the MorningSide/Gleaners twice-monthly food distribution, as well as a member of the MorningSide Vacant Property Task Force and our new Clean Neighborhood Club.

“I have a lot of experience transforming unappreciated urban space into treasured community assets,” she says. “I am 100% dedicated to making the West Side the Best Side of MorningSide!”

Briana Mason
At-Large Director Briana Mason brings a new perspective to our board and community. She moved into MorningSide last year but already considers it home. “I’m raising my family here. I want my twin daughters to have pride in their neighborhood and truly know their neighbors.”

This concern for community isn’t surprising given Briana’s professional background. She has a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Eastern Michigan University and recently served as an Urban Planner for the City of Detroit Planning and Development Department. While there she helped residents of Russell Woods and Nardin Park create their neighborhood plan. Briana currently works for Enterprise Community Partners as a Program Officer.

Briana says she wants “to be actively involved in keeping MorningSide a beautiful place and reciprocate the love and care that others have shown me.”

Nic Hall
At-Large Director Nic Hall has spent much of the last year building our organization’s online infrastructure – contributing to the newsletter, helping to build and maintain the MorningSide website, email blast system, and the Zoom conferencing that has allowed us to continue regular general meetings throughout the pandemic. “Now it’s time to focus on offline infrastructure – our people and places,” he says.

Nic has been doing just that over the past year. An avid biker, he helped organize community bike rides touring points of interest in MorningSide, reactivated the MorningSide block captain program, and helped to launch the new Clean Neighborhood Club, which did its first cleanup last month.

“As a relatively new member of the community,” Nic says, my role is to listen: to support the people that have been here for decades, to help highlight or amplify the concerns of long-term neighbors. My secondary role is to showcase the neighborhood – to market our community – so new families consider moving in.”

Andrew Joseph White
Andrew Joseph “AJ” White, a new At-Large Director, says he “knows how to get things done,” and indeed he does. When he bought his Detroit Land Bank home on Nottingham in 2016, it needed a complete renovation. AJ was able to do it himself, drawing on his 40 years of experience running a construction company specializing in renovating Land Bank houses.

AJ also bought an adjacent lot and turned it into an apple orchard “for a hobby and recreational purposes.” Like so many projects, it’s been more work than he expected, but he hasn’t been deterred by problems like aphids and apple maggots. To get rid of the pests, AJ bought plastic baseballs from the dollar store and painted them with a glue-like red substance to create fake apples that would attract and capture the insects.

One of AJ’s priorities now is cleaning up his section of MorningSide by starting the “MorningSide Antilitter Patrol,” or MAP, concentrating on Chatsworth and Cornwall. “My endless energies will know no bounds,” says AJ, “on programs and policies that put community above individuals.”

Aaron Smith
In addition to his position as an At-Large Director of MorningSide Community Organization, Aaron Smith has served our neighborhood as Executive Director of Motor City Grounds Crew, which he founded in 2010 with a mission “to strengthen Detroit neighborhoods through green space beautification, youth sports activities, and community tool libraries.”

Although MCGC’s work spans the entire city, Aaron has worked closely with Featherstone Garden on Lakepointe, as well as the East Warren Tool Library. The heavy equipment that MCGC uses has proven invaluable to us for managing blight through activities like neighborhood cleanups and removing dead trees.

“I have a natural affinity with this neighborhood,” Aaron says, “because it reminds me so much of the Flint neighborhood where I grew up.”

Rakisha Odom
Rakisha Odom, a newly-elected At-Large Director, has been keeping busy these days. She is the Community Engagement Coordinator at Brilliant Detroit MorningSide, a non-profit on Balfour whose mission is to “create kid success neighborhoods” by offering a wide range of services and enrichment programs to families with children ages 0 to 8.

Rakisha is an integral part of all of Brilliant Detroit’s programming, including “Brilliant Loves New Moms”, which provides baby supplies, breast feeding support, “sister moms”, and monthly community baby showers to new mothers in MorningSide. She’s also working with Brilliant’s gardening team, with the goal of having “a garden on every block” of our neighborhood. And there’s also Healthlink, a health education program currently focused on fighting childhood obesity.

Despite all these responsibilities, Rakisha still finds time to volunteer with the MorningSide/Gleaners food distribution twice a month.