Overview:

-Danny Dolley, a lifelong Detroiter from Chandler Park, champions environmental justice to build a healthier community for all.
-Partnering with fellow resident Loretta Powell, he co-founded the Little Detroit Community Garden, featuring rain gardens to tackle stormwater issues.
-“Dolley is a leader in every environmental justice issue he works on, such as mobility, storm water, flooding, air quality, or even getting out the vote," says his friend Erin Stanley.

This story is published as part of Planet Detroit’s 2025 Spring Neighborhood Reporting Lab, supported by The Kresge Foundation, to train community-based writers in profile writing. This year’s participants will focus on highlighting grassroots leaders driving positive change in metro Detroit.

Lifelong Detroiter Danny Dolley is committed to developing a healthier community for people, animals, the land, and water.

He started his community improvement work in 2013 and is a resident watershed planner with the Watershed Planning Committee hosted by the Eastside Community Network.

The Chandler Park neighborhood on Detroit’s east side where Dolley lives was first built in the 1920s when many Germans immigrated to work in Detroit’s thriving automobile industry.

Dolley grew up near Chandler Park and was part of the first generation of integration in the neighborhood. Prior to Dolley’s family owning their home, the previous owners refused to sell the house to a Black family due to redlining. Dolley later discovered the previous owner of his house was a German immigrant who worked at Chrysler. 

When Dolley was growing up, he recalls the investment the city made in Chandler Park’s Wayne County Aquatic Family Center. He recalls, “This was a baseball and softball park when I was growing up. You only got two baseball diamonds left now but they were everywhere throughout the park.”  

Danny Dolley, age 8, in Chandler Park on the hood of his dad’s car. Photo circa 1963 courtesy of the Dolley family.

Dolley’s path to community engagement on Detroit’s east side

Dolley first became more involved in community improvement and nonprofit work in 2017 when he joined the Healthy Initiative led by ECN, then known as the Warren/Conner Development Coalition. The Healthy Initiative was about improving the health of Chandler Park residents and their activity in the park, while also cleaning it up.

“I first got involved in community improvement because of curiosity. My mother saw her primary care doctor at the Henry Ford Health Center that used to be inside what is now the Stoudamire (Wellness Hub). There were three or four nonprofits in that building at the time. I saw a flyer in the mail in 2013 and was curious so I checked out ECN,” he said. 

According to Dolley, “They fed me good so I kept coming back.” 

ECN renamed the building The Stoudamire Wellness Hub to honor community leader Marlowe Stoudamire, who died from COVID-19 in 2020.    

Dolley is well-known for always being with his bike: it’s his favorite way to travel. After his involvement with the Healthy Initiative, he started to give historical bike tours with Neighborhood Tours Detroit. Through a partnership between ECN and the University of Michigan, neighbors learned how to give bike tours for free, something Dolley said he enjoyed learning about.

“I started doing bike tours right here at Chandler Park and Conner Creek Greenway and expanded from there,” Dolley said. He has 11 types of tours available on his pocket site, many showcasing stormwater management projects. 

The storylines are all different, but those are the places and spaces he likes to reflect back on in his lifetime. One of his self-guided tours takes riders down Shoemaker, he said.

“Shoemaker, between Conner and McClellan Street, is right off where I live. I talk about how Chandler Park changed from being just a baseball park.” 

Dolley enjoys giving bike tours because it empowers neighbors to do their own storytelling. “(It’s important) for me to do these tours because I’m looking back on my life and I still always learn something new. That’s what motivates me to do tours,” he said.

His main goal with the tours is to do them for free so people can have the experience of guiding a tour themselves.

“That’s my challenge to you, is if I give you a tour of this park, you should be able to take your family and friends here and be the tour guide.” 

‘Leader in every environmental justice issue he works on’

Erin Stanley, formerly the senior director of environmental justice at ECN and a friend of Dolley since 2018, reflects after a recent bike tour.

“Dolley is really good at telling the story of why these (environmental) spaces matter. He’s really good at connecting how spaces like the Conner Creek Greenway, the Chandler Park Marshland, and even the Hamilton Avenue Bioswale, are really beautiful but also how they serve a function, and explains all the work community members had to put in to make these spaces happen.” 

The work Dolley is doing on the east side is important for people and the planet, she said. Stanley started working closely with Dolley in 2021 when she became a full-time employee at ECN. At that time, Dolley was a LEAP fellow. The LEAP Sustainability  Fellowship, according to Stanley, is “designed for people just like Danny who are already leading in their community and are looking for some kind of institutional support.”  

Shortly after, Dolley was awarded a minigrant from ECN’s Resident Climate Corps program to launch an initiative to convert bicycles into e-bikes. While the project helps the environment with less cars on the road, it also provides more mobility for Detroiters, and improves their health. 

E-bike demand is skyrocketing, as they’re cheaper than cars, easy to ride and environmentally friendly, according to Bridge Detroit.

“Dolley is a leader in every environmental justice issue he works on, such as mobility, storm water, flooding, air quality, or even getting out the vote. Dolley is someone who puts action where his words and values are, and keeps community organizations accountable in a really beautiful way,” Stanley said.

Dolley detailed how recessions impacted his neighborhood and how predatory lending led to foreclosures, home demolitions, and more empty lots. He said he’s always had a dream to start a community garden at an empty lot near his home.

Danny Dolley shows off the rocks used as a drainage system in Chandler Park. Overflow from the street drains through the rocks into the marshland. Photo by Shayla Zimmerman.

Dolley partnered with another east side resident, Loretta Powell, to build the Little Detroit Community Garden, located at 5027 Montclair St.

Leveraging their expertise, their community garden incorporates several rain gardens. 

“Many people still think my rain garden is a flower garden, but it’s not. It’s actually helping some of the water move from the roof, to the sidewalk, to the drain. I used to think that a rain garden was just a rain barrel.” Dolley said.

“If everyone had a rain garden, it would really help with stormwater backup and decrease flooding.”

Both Dolley and Powell are on the East Side Flooding Task Force and are working on a watershed management plan with Wayne State University and ECN.

“I never noticed flooding in my yard or house until the flood of summer 2021, where my whole basement floor was covered wall to wall in water.” Dolley said.

“I try to tell people to not leave anything valuable in your basement. You should store stuff in your attic or outdoor storage to protect it from flooding.” 

He suggests that Detroiters are not ready for another flood and can be more prepared by not storing valuables in their basement, educating themselves about stormwater management, and building a rain garden at their home. 

An activist dedicated to environmental justice, public health, and grassroots organizing.