More Together: How the Church and a Nonprofit Are Building Hope in Detroit

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By Eastin Hartzell, Church News

In a sewing center in Detroit, Michigan, a Latter-day Saint woman sat alone, scrolling through her phone during a break from cutting fabric. She had come to volunteer, expecting to give, not receive. But a refugee woman noticed her sitting alone, walked over, offered a banana and invited her to sit.

It was a small act of kindness. But Rachel Cannon, a stake communications leader, explains that it was much more.

“She thought, ‘I’m going there to serve,’” Cannon said, “But it changed her relationship to the community, to those individuals and to the service.”

That gesture reflects something larger unfolding in Detroit: a growing collaboration between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Zaman International.

A Shared Mission of Self-reliance

Founded in 1996 and rooted in the Arab and Muslim communities of Dearborn, Michigan, Zaman International exists to “break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.” Its work focuses on single mothers, refugee families and others navigating crises.

“We have education and workforce development, and more recently, health services,” said Monica Boomer, Zaman’s chief impact officer. “We try to be that one-stop shop for our clients, so that when they’re in the door, they can see a future of self-reliance, a future of real sustainability for their families, and then work through those different programs at their own speed and according to their own pathway.”

Their focuses align with the Church’s global effort to improve the health and well-being of women and children. Boomer said, “If the mother of the family falls because of poverty, because of illness, because of any number of reasons, a whole generation of the family is going to fall with her. At the same time, if you empower and help that mother reach self-reliance and sustainability, your impact on that family is going to be multigenerational.”

Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson said something similar in 2024: “When you bless a woman, you bless a family, a community, a nation. When you bless a child, you invest in the future.”

Cannon said, “Their mission of helping women and children and breaking the cycle of poverty obviously appeals to us.”

“What they do is very client-centered and reminiscent of building people the way that we try to do it in the Church,” Cannon added. “It’s not just providing instantaneous relief, but also trying to build people and their capability.”

The collaboration began in 2016 and has since grown to include food donations from the bishops’ storehouse, truckloads of supplies from Salt Lake City, regular service from local missionaries and , and a Giving Machine donation station, which was introduced in 2024.

Since 2010, Zaman has served over 5 million people internationally.

‘We Really Are Thought Partners’

Zaman averages around 500 collaborations each year, but few have become as relational and enduring as the one with the Church.

“We really are thought partners,” Boomer said. “There’s a mutual desire to help elevate our ability to serve, and that just makes for a very beautiful partnership.”

Cannon put it this way: “We’re a congregation of people trying to do good, who half the time don’t know how to do it. … We need to find the people who are doing good, the people who are being driven by the Light of Christ, whether that’s how they refer to it or not, and them in what they’re doing in whatever way that is.”

That mutual learning is evident in moments large and small, such as refugee resettlement deliveries, health clinic funding, and JustServe projects. “We’re not perfect,” Cannon added. “But we constantly find that we’re just trying to fill needs together.”

Prophetic Priorities

Greg Geiger, communications director of the Church’s Michigan Detroit Coordinating Council, explained that Detroit is one of the most racially and religiously diverse cities in the United States — a city with deep historical divisions. In that context, collaboration itself becomes a powerful message.

Zaman was one of the local nonprofits that the Church’s Giving Machine station in Detroit ed last year. Geiger recalls the moment Zaman CEO Najah Bazzy addressed the media at the launch event. “She didn’t talk at all about Zaman. She talked about how important this relationship is with the Church of Jesus Christ — and she even said our right name.”

Speaking of collaborations like the one with Zaman, Geiger believes they align with the teachings of Church leaders. “Caring for the poor and needy, one of our prophetic priorities, can only be done with you.”

Seeing as Christ Sees

This collaboration has also helped Church see differently.

“One of my favorite things in the scriptures is how Christ beholds people and sees people,” Cannon said. “These relationships help us to see people and to truly understand them.”

That Christlike lens, she said, changes how service is approached. “It’s about connecting, right? It’s not just that I’m there to save someone or to fix something. It’s as human beings and children of God.”

Boomer has seen that in action in one family. “She was receiving food deliveries and client services case management from us. Now we’re maybe 12 years down the road, and her son just completed grad school. It has completely changed the trajectory of his family, and I think the key to us being able to do that successfully is to be committed to keeping our clients at the core of every decision we make.”

A Vision for the Future

Cannon grew up in Detroit as the only Latter-day Saint in most of her circles. Later, at BYU, she found herself surrounded by people who didn’t understand her home. “I want them to know and love the people in Detroit.”

Now, she sees those two groups coming together through shared meals, t projects and quiet discipleship.

That vision was reinforced when Zaman’s leadership visited Welfare Square in Salt Lake City in February 2020. As they stood near massive warehouse pillars, they asked why they were so large. The answer stayed with them: “Because when nothing else is standing, we will be here.”

Boomer said, “We left there on the plane home buzzing with ideas about how we can adapt what the Church has already done so well and scale up what we’re able to do here.”

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