Gilbert Family Foundation

Hello, friends, and welcome to your Daily Detroit.

Joining me here at the studio at Tech Town is J.J. Velez, Senior Director of Public Space for the Gilbert Family Foundation.

We're going to be talking about some Detroit parks today.

J.J., welcome to Daily Detroit.

And

so what got you into this work?

Yeah, so I've been part of the foundation, Gilbert Family Foundation, for a little over six years.

Prior to that, I worked for the city of Detroit.

So if you think about all the facilities we have on this campus here in East Lansing, uh, that will be the largest of them.

Uh, it'll, uh, house, uh, over 500, uh, researchers, uh, 80, uh, principal investigators with research, everything from, uh, an entire floor dedicated to ner- neurofibromatosis, which, uh, uh, the Gilbert Family Foundation is, is supporting, uh, uh, all of the work that'll happen on that, uh, floor of the building, uh, to honor, uh, Nick, uh, Gilbert, as you know, who passed a few years ago from this disease.

Um, cancer research, um, uh, neuroscience, which is an area that, uh, you know, my, uh, background in neuroscience, I'm excited about the work that'll happen there.

So it, it's just incredible partnership with Henry Ford, and a lot of great things are gonna happen, new discoveries out of that facility right there, um, in the heart of the city.

Gilbert is the founder and chairman of Rocket Companies.

He's also started the Rocket Community Fund and the Gilbert Family Foundation.

nonprofits that fund projects to help people right here in the city of Detroit.

He's also been a longtime supporter of the parade.