Community comes together to gift SUV to single mother ahead of the holiday

There was a period of time when Dailena “Lena” Easley was perhaps the most qualified person in Detroit to critique the city’s public bus service.

As Easley tells it, for close to two years, she routinely caught four buses to work in the morning and repeated the process during late afternoons and into the evening. The later trek also included some walking: Picking up her daughter from school along the way back home.

And much of the time Easley spent waiting for buses was done in the darkness.

However, the proud product of Goodale Elementary, Dorothy Fisher Middle School and Denby High School — where Easley graduated as vice president of the Class of 1995 — says her long and intricate bus journeys were more than worth it, because her work destination just happens to be a source of light to many.

That special destination where Easley goes to work — while also performing work for her community — is the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, a multifaceted nonprofit organization that has served Detroit’s “homeless and addicted communities” since 1909, while being one of the largest housing and treatment providers in metro Detroit.

“The mission has been a real important part of my life,” said Easley, who puts her “passion” for accounting and business practices to use each workday as she purchases essential supplies for 11 locations in five counties operated by DRMM that provides housing, food, treatment and other services to men, women, children and veterans. “Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries is more than just a helping hand and it’s here not just for homelessness. It’s also here for people who need recovery and it’s here for people who need a hand up and a fresh start.”

When Easley speaks with conviction about DRMM, she speaks as a native Detroiter who grew up on the city’s east side, and as a mother who has experienced some of the same daunting life challenges that have been a part of the many lives that DRMM serves each day. As Easley revealed on the afternoon of Nov. 26, she knows firsthand what it means to be homeless. Her life journey has brought Easley face to face with domestic violence as well. Easley also continues to mourn the loss of her oldest son Forest Rochon Jr. — a promising scholar-athlete, and a natural positive leader of his peers — who was the victim of gun violence in 2017.

But Easley, an orchestra member and student of modern dance while growing up, found a soothing, healing melody of sorts from DRMM even before she started working for the nonprofit — in the form of meals she received at one of DRMM’s Detroit locations during a time of need. And now that Easley is an essential part of the giving that DRMM performs, working out of an office at 150 Stimson St., she says her admiration for the organization continues to grow.

“I feel a tremendous sense of well-being every time I come to work,” Easley, who also is the proud mother of Duane Evans Jr., Daniel Davis and Lauryn Easley, said. “It’s just a great feeling and I never have to worry about going home and feeling stress. I’m surrounded by angels — everybody here is an angel.”

On Oct. 10, a room full of “angels” and other community members was brought to tears when DRMM surprised Easley with a car — a 2015 Black Ford Focus — during the nonprofit’s 115th anniversary and graduation celebration at the DRMM Banquet Center, 3606 East Forest Drive.

Easley says she still cries “every day” when she thinks about the kind, generous gesture bestowed upon her. And in the process, Easley thinks about her father, too, the late Dwight Miner, who gave her some important advice that led to her joining DRMM in 2023 when Easley also was catching four buses regularly to visit him at Henry Ford Hospital near New Center.

“My dad had been a postal clerk and he was ill with cancer and dementia. He knew I was catching all of those buses to see him and he wanted me to do something for myself, so he said: ‘Why don’t you just get a job,’ ” recalls Easley, whose childhood included being a child missionary at several Detroit churches. “So, it was like God put everything in the same structure and the same order for me to be a part of Detroit Rescue Mission Missionaries, and I followed that path.”