Christine Leads A Family Reunion With a Purpose

Christine Leads A Family Reunion With a Purpose

Friends,

It began with the desire to do something good.  I have had a deep love for New Orleans since the early ’80s when I ran a neighborhood social service center for the Catholic Diocese there.  Watching Katrina/Rita and seeing the maps of flooding were personally painful. So, I’d been thinking I’d do something. The next time I did a life-planning retreat down there I’d invite my clients to take an extra day and work on a Habitat for Humanity site. My love was rekindled when I dropped off my daughter Cece for a year of service with City Year New Orleans.  And I was so impressed and proud when I heard my cousin Christine Bitonti and my Aunt Susan Sanitate had visited her when they, of all things, went to the 9th Ward for a week-long blitz build with Habitat. For some reason, though, my thinking about helping changed…

Much as New Orleans needed and needs help, I thought: Let Brad Pitt and the Neville Brothers and Dr. John do that work, but Detroit has been hit by its own hurricane and is beset with its own difficulties. So, why go to New Orleans? Why not organize a family reunion of sorts, where we build a house in our own homeland, Detroit? Maybe on Garland, the street that my mom and Christine’s mom grew up on. I knew I neither had the time, nor the skills to organize it. So I called Christine and pitched her on it: What if we get the family together for a reunion with a purpose, stop whining about “what’s happened to Detroit” and instead we’ll “happen” to Detroit. I explained that I couldn’t make it happen but  I thought she’d be great, and she answered with three words, “I’m your girl.”

That was about 6 months ago. With Christine’s leadership we’ve raised over $15,000 to help pay for the house.  This past week with brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, my 79-year old mom, and lots of other awesome Habitat volunteers, we put up walls, roof, studs aplenty, and siding. Now the skilled tradesmen are in. We reconvene after July 4th for a week to complete the house – cabinets, trim, paint, sod – the whole works. Our relatives are coming back from NY, Delaware, Illinois, Florida, California and other parts to make it happen; forty in all have committed to work.  My sister Ann and niece Gigi were there every day this week. Christine was there too. She’d run the Facebook page, coordinated volunteers, worked with Habitat; if that wasn’t enough she and her husband Lou provided food for 100 workers at the site on Thursday.  Chris’ mom raised 8 kids, then became a school secretary, and then published two novels. Chris is fast in her mom’s footsteps, leading at home, the most important place we’ll lead, and then organizing a much bigger corner of the world.

I salute her this morning, an everyday leader, leading with her best self!

Dan

P.S. When my Aunt Margaret, the senior member of my dad’s side of the family – herself a mother of eight – heard what we were doing, she said the Mulhern’s are going to do it, too, and look out cousins, she’s on the phone!!!  Is your family due for a reunion?

  • Great comments: I am sending them down to HFHI. Thanks again to you and your wife’s for your leaership in the State. It is great to work with you. Hopefully we can go to Haiti when HFHI can get into the country to begin to work on building permanent houses and work on the Granholm/Mulhern house. ken

  • Wow Dan,

    What an awesome tribute to your family! Those of us who have spent any extended time with the Mulhern’s know that putting people first is not only something you talk about. But something that you regularly do. I still owe you big for kindnesses that you have given to me and I haven’t forgotten.

    PEACE BE WITH YOU AND YOUR FAMILY DAN~ The TIP Lady

  • A meaningful statement from Margaret Mead keeps coming back to me: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Sometimes the lives we change are those of people we know, sometimes they’re lives of people we’ll never meet.

    This is a wonderful story, and a great way to start the week. Thanks to Dan, Jennifer and their family and friends for their commitment to making things better for people during some challenging times.

  • Bravo Dan!

    Reading this week’s RFL placed me at the scene. When a family can work together that is empowerment. When there is a purpose, that generates unity.

    Now days, there are lots of families who do not work together like this (including my own), however building a house together and bringing a family together as a result of the project, has reminded me of the times when there were 10 of us living in a 3 bedroom 4 family flat on Otsego in Detroit; My grandmother was the head of household. It was those times that taught me to appreciate my family.

    Thomas K. Burke-Mentor

  • Thanks so very much, Dan, Jennifer and family. What a model family project that makes such a positive difference in a family’s life. Blessings to you for generating such a great idea and such a wonderful home project!

  • Fantastic. I always remind people that charity begins at home. You don’t have to go somewhere else. True we are all in this together and if we all began where we live the world would be a kinder and happier place. What a great family! Congratulations. I am a fan.

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