Boxing champion Thomas Hearns is jumping into the blight busting act in Detroit.
Charles Ramirez of the Detroit News writes that the eight-time world boxing champion is organizing a July 9 effort to clean up a section of Helen Street near East Grand Boulevard where he grew up. The work will include picking up trash, removing brush and painting over graffiti.
“When I drive down Helen Street today, I don’t see the neighborhood that once made me a world champion,” Hearns said, according to the News. “Instead I see abandoned homes, graffiti, illegally dumped garbage, and brush as tall as me.”
He'll have help from people like Jackie Kallen, his former promoter who also grew up in Detroit, Kallen’s friend and 13th District State Senate candidate Ryan Fishman and Repair the World Detroit, a Jewish volunteer organization.
Fishman, a Birmingham attorney and media consultant, who is running for state Senate in a district in Oakland County, tells the News that Kallen called him for help because he knows Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. He worked on Duggan's mayoral campaign.
“It was just a no-brainer for me,” said Fishman.
