This ‘awesome’ Detroit cook also serves up kindness and generosity

Years in the past, Angela Arnold might look down on the town of Detroit as she operated a tower crane. However at present, Arnold is all about lifting up Detroiters within the metropolis by means of free meals and extra.

• Angela Arnold offers free meals, clothes and different requirements to about 200 unhoused individuals in Detroit every week.
• She based the nonprofit Angels of Michigan in 2013 to help her neighborhood outreach efforts.
• She funds her work primarily from her personal pocket, with some help from donations from the neighborhood and different native teams.
• Arnold advocates changing deserted metropolis buildings into dignified shelters and soup kitchens for these in want.

Angela Arnold spent most of her childhood in Middletown, Ohio, the place she attended the identical highschool as NFL Corridor of Fame receiver Cris Carter, who recorded a formidable 1,101 receptions throughout a 16-season skilled profession, largely with the Minnesota Vikings.

However with no disrespect to Carter – whose thousandth reception got here in a recreation towards the Detroit Lions on December 1, 2000 – Detroiters who’ve been on the receiving finish of Arnold’s kindness and generosity will more than likely say that her rising physique of labor is impacting in methods that can’t be totally measured by mere statistics.

That is as a result of Arnold’s actions are guided by her coronary heart.

And Arnold’s coronary heart strikes her in a profound means, main her to purchase meals that she cooks and serves as a free meal to about 200 individuals in Detroit each week. That very same coronary heart additionally strikes Arnold to recurrently distribute free clothes, blankets, sleeping luggage and different gadgets that assist unhoused members of our neighborhood survive one other day.

And when Arnold’s coronary heart discovers much more methods she could be of service, Arnold responds with motion, a lot of which she has funded out of her personal pocket.

“It is really easy for my coronary heart to interrupt, and my coronary heart aches each time I see individuals dwelling on the streets with out the fundamental issues we have to survive,” stated Arnold, 59, who spoke in the course of the afternoon of Jan. 6 as she made plans to organize and serve free meals to individuals in want of hearty and attractive meals on the Rosa Parks Transit Middle downtown.

“How are you going to simply drive by whenever you see one thing like 4 ladies shivering below the bridge at 96 (Interstate 96) and Telegraph in freezing temperatures like we had in early 2025 and do nothing? It is a horrible world on the market when this occurs and I do not need to be part of that. I need to be the kind of one who all the time does the fitting factor for different individuals, each time. And I need to be that one who anybody in want can belief for something.”

Arnold’s phrases could sound like one thing an angel would possibly say, which ties in with the identify of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit she based in 2013: Angels of Michigan. Since then, Arnold and her meals have turn into a weekly Saturday lunchtime staple in Cass Park, whatever the climate. Throughout the road from the Masonic Temple (500 Temple St. within the Cass Park Historic District), the place a number of the world’s most well-known entertainers have carried out, Arnold serves a meal round 1 p.m. after a prayer that has turn into well-known in its personal proper.

“I am a fantastic prepare dinner,” Arnold stated in a proud however genuinely humble tone of her Saturday meals that typically encompass fried hen, string beans with white potatoes, fried corn and cornbread. And for the vacations, Arnold prepares turkey and ham with all of the trimmings, together with the cranberry sauce.

“I’ve individuals from all walks of life ready to eat my meals on Saturdays,” Arnold added. “There are individuals who drive up in Cadillacs and BMWs. Typically they volunteer to assist me set all the things up, after which they line as much as be served. I do not ask questions as a result of most of us are only one paycheck away from altering our lives.”

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“I additionally discuss and pay attention quite a bit once I’m there. You meet moms who’re on the road with their kids as a result of the moms complained to their landlord in regards to the dangerous situations of their houses. I additionally met individuals who have been attorneys and medical doctors, and so they have been most likely in the identical line as individuals they used to deal with.”

Though Arnold prides herself on her cooking and listening abilities, she admits that fundraising is unquestionably not her experience. Arnold expressed her gratitude for a donation she acquired from Walmart in November 2025. However a lot of the help Arnold receives comes from phrase of mouth, unfold by individuals in the neighborhood who’ve heard or seen her good deeds firsthand.

On this means, these people and teams, usually concerned in their very own efforts to assist their communities, turn into Arnold’s fellow “Angels.” This group contains The Order of Jap Star; The Crimson Hat Affiliation; Arnold’s physician, who gave her a trailer; Stacie Washington with The Sandwich Challenge 313, and Minister Aaron and LeSheia Funches of Feeding Households By Religion, whose cellular outreach contains meals, clothes and prayer.

Within the case of the Funches household, the neighborhood work that husband and spouse do along with Arnold is an extension of the thirty-year friendship the three have shared. And so they search to increase that spirit of friendship to everybody they serve.

“When individuals are going by means of a battle, they need to see for those who care,” stated Minister Funches, who stepped ahead to companion with Arnold on the free Saturday meals in Cass Park at a time when Arnold feared she would not be capable to maintain that type of neighborhood outreach. Minister Funches and LeSheia Funches, together with Stacie Washington, have been additionally on the Rosa Parks Transit Middle with Arnold on January 7.

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“Simply serving just isn’t sufficient, you must take it under consideration,” Minister Funches added. “That is why I deal with the individuals we serve like kings and queens. And once they see you care and love them, you see the change of their lives.”

Arnold additionally spoke a couple of type of “change” because it pertains to including and refining the service she offers to the neighborhood in 2026.

“I need to begin feeding individuals each Wednesday on the Transit Middle. And with the trailer, I need to go into the neighborhoods and serve meals,” stated Arnold, who additionally spoke enthusiastically a couple of constructing Minister Funches just lately bought at 17710 Fenkell, close to a KFC, the place Angels of Mission and Feeding Households By Religion hope to serve their very own free scorching meals whereas offering different requirements as soon as the constructing is renovated. “Exercising and doing extra is what I want to do and the constructing may also assist with that.”

And there is one other necessary change Arnold want to see occur in Detroit, the town she has referred to as dwelling for the previous 31 years. This alteration echoes an earlier a part of Arnold’s grownup journey, earlier than spinal surgical procedure, when she was an Worldwide Working Engineer represented by Native 324. The principle piece of kit Arnold operated was a tower crane, and thru her work she started to pay further consideration to buildings in Detroit, which she continues to do at present, together with deserted buildings.

So it ought to come as no shock that Arnold believes deserted buildings can be utilized to handle a difficulty near her coronary heart.

“There are deserted buildings everywhere in the metropolis that may be transformed into lovely, dignified shelters that may be divided up for males, ladies and households,” says Arnold, who tries to seek out time to share details about her neighborhood actions on her nonprofit’s Facebook page (which is a non-public group web page, so it’s essential to ask permission to affix), simply as details about Feeding Households By Religion and The Sandwich Challenge 313 could be discovered on these nonprofits’ respective Fb pages.

Arnold stated she would additionally like to speak with any involved individual in the neighborhood through e-mail at angelsofmichigan@gmail.com.

“Deserted buildings will also be reworked into lovely soup kitchens. As an alternative of attempting to stash our much less lucky away when large occasions and conventions come to Detroit, after which sending individuals again out onto the streets with nothing, we will use these areas to repeatedly take care of individuals, as a result of we’re all human.”

Scott Talley is a local Detroiter, a proud product of Detroit Public Faculties and a lifelong lover of Detroit tradition in its varied varieties. On his second tour with the Free Press, which he grew up with as a toddler, he talks enthusiastically and humbly in regards to the metropolis’s neighborhoods and the numerous attention-grabbing individuals who outline the completely different communities. Contact him at stalley@freepress.com or observe him on Twitter @STalleyfreep. Learn extra tales from Scott at www.freep.com/mosaic/detroit-is/. Please assist us develop nice community-focused journalism by become a subscriber.