Walk a Mile Wednesday returns with nine summer walks across Detroit's precincts

Lace your shoes for June 10. Walk a Mile Wednesday returns to Detroit that evening with the season's first walk leaving from the new Helen Moore Community Center at 11825 Dexter Avenue. Neighbors and beat officers assemble at 5:30 p.m. and step off at 6 p.m. for an hour of conversation on the surrounding blocks.

The program, now in its sixth year, was started in 2021 by former Detroit Police Chief James White, who wanted residents and officers to know each other as people before they ever needed to meet over an incident. The walks have continued every summer since. Chief Todd Bettison has kept the basic shape: meet at a community anchor, walk through the surrounding blocks, talk to whoever shows up.

"Public safety is all of our responsibility," Mayor Mary Sheffield has said of the program. "We don't want young people to only encounter DPD when something is wrong."

The June 10 kickoff lands at a venue with its own story. The Helen Moore Community Center reopened in late November after the city's $11.9 million renovation of what had been the Dexter-Elmhurst Community Center. The building had been owned by a neighborhood nonprofit that Helen Moore helped run for decades. Moore, sometimes called Mother Moore, is 84 and has spent more than six decades fighting for Detroit's Black children. She founded Black Parents for Quality Education in 1969 and was among the plaintiffs in a 2016 federal lawsuit arguing the State of Michigan was denying Detroit students the right to literacy. The city renamed the center for her and opened it to the public on November 21. June 10 will be its first time hosting Walk a Mile Wednesday.

Bettison said he picked up the program because the math made sense to him. "I just wanted to continue it and take it to higher levels. Violent crime is going down, but we're also concerned about quality of life." Detroit's nonfatal shootings fell roughly 50 percent between 2022 and 2024, and carjackings are down 71 percent since 2015, the figures Bettison most often cites when he explains the through-line from a Wednesday-evening walk to a measurably quieter city.

The full season schedule, all walks at 6 p.m.:

• June 10: 10th Precinct, Helen Moore Community Center, 11825 Dexter Ave.
• June 17: 9th Precinct
• July 1: 8th Precinct
• July 15: 7th Precinct
• July 29: 6th Precinct
• August 12: 5th Precinct
• August 26: 4th Precinct
• September 9: 3rd Precinct
• September 23: 2nd Precinct

Step-off locations for the later walks will be shared closer to each date. So lace up and meet the officers walking your block. For questions, residents can reach Neighborhood Police Officer Debra Matthews at 313-500-5037 or [email protected].