Detroit's skyline runs blue and green all month for NF awareness

For weeks, downtown Detroit has been glowing in the same two colors after dark. Blue and green wash across the GM Renaissance Center, Michigan Central Station, Hudson's Detroit, Huntington Place, Ford Field, Book Tower, One Campus Martius, Ally Detroit Center, the First National Building and a long list of other landmarks. The pairing is deliberate, and it carries a message.

May is national Neurofibromatosis Awareness Month. The lights are Detroit's piece of a global campaign called Shine a Light on NF, led nationally by the Children's Tumor Foundation, which illuminates landmarks in blue and green, the official NF awareness colors, throughout the month. Locally the effort is organized by NFX, which lists the campaign as running May 1 through May 31 on its Shine a Light on NF page.

What gives the campaign its weight in Detroit is who is behind it. NFX, known until last year as NF Forward, was founded in 2017 by Dan and Jennifer Gilbert after their oldest son, Nick, was born with NF1. The organization rebranded to NFX in May 2025, per the Gilbert Family Foundation, to underscore a sharper focus on accelerating research and treatments for the disease.

Nick Gilbert became a familiar face well beyond Detroit. He represented the Cleveland Cavaliers at the 2011 NBA draft lottery as a 14 year old in a bow tie and dark rimmed glasses, the night Cleveland won the No. 1 overall pick it used to draft Kyrie Irving. He returned to the stage at later lotteries, and the bow tie became his signature. The Detroit News reported that he was diagnosed with NF1 as a young child, underwent multiple brain surgeries, lost vision and went through chemotherapy. He died on May 6, 2023, at age 26, from complications of the disease.

His name now anchors the family's largest commitment. The Gilbert Family Foundation has announced the Nick Gilbert Neurofibromatosis Research Institute, which the foundation describes as the first brick and mortar institute focused solely on finding a cure for NF. It will be housed in the new Henry Ford Health and Michigan State University research building on Henry Ford's east campus, with the foundation committing $50 million toward construction and $190 million over ten years for operations and research. The foundation puts its combined contribution to that facility and an attached rehabilitation center at nearly $375 million. The building is expected to open in 2027.

That effort sits inside a wider push. The Gilbert family and its allied NF organizations have collectively committed nearly $180 million to NF research, according to the Gilbert Family Foundation, and the annual beNeFit gala has raised more than $75 million since 2013.

Neurofibromatosis is a genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow along nerves throughout the body, with effects that can include vision and hearing loss, bone abnormalities, chronic pain and cancer. NF1, the most common form, affects roughly 1 in 3,000 people worldwide, per NFX, and there is no cure. May 17 is recognized as World NF1 Awareness Day, the date the local campaign builds its public events around.

The illuminated skyline is the public facing edge of all of it. The campaign runs through the end of May, and more information, donation options and ways to get involved are at nfxdetroit.org.