[00:00:00] Speaker A: I am so excited about this. I put it on my social media, talked about it about a week ago. But I want to bring it back up because this is a big deal.
Hallelujah4Heat is back in the Motor City. And with me in the studio from DTE is Mark Jones and Don Defoe. How are you all doing?
[00:00:19] Speaker B: We're doing great. We're excited to be here.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: I'm happy to have you.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Fantastic.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hallelujah for Heat. Which number we're at year 12.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: No, this is the 14th.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: 14Th. Where am I?
[00:00:31] Speaker B: We're happy to say that too. Not consecutive, but the 14th.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I know we got interrupted during the pandemic. A little lower scale.
You've had Yolanda Adams. Oh, you had the Clarkson.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Kurt Franklin, Kirk Franklin. Yeah, we've had quite a few acts that people wanted to see.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. And Don, they really want to see this.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. They definitely want to see John P. Key. And we're excited to be able to bring this to the community.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Now, give me a little bit of background as to why this is so important for Detroit and the community.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Well, we wanted to say something. DTE wanted to collaborate with his 40 year partner. Matter of fact, this is the 40th anniversary of DTE and Thaw working together to serve the community and give assistance back. Making sure that no one went without energy.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: And you know, THAW gets funds and pays. Pays people's bills. And we wanted to make sure we thank the community for the things that they were going through all year. DTE tries to make sure that they understand what the community needs are. We partner with organizations like Thaw and this event, it really starts what we call the week of warmth.
We have Hallelujah for Heat that gives praise through music and lets people unwind and say and feel good about what's going on. And then we have a Customer Assistance Day, or Customer Resource Day. That's the old name, Assistance Day. We have people coming in, organizations coming in to help the community with all of their needs. And DTE will be there to help people pay their bills with thaw's assistance.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
I really like the fact that we're looking at people who may have had to use THAW to pay their bills or maybe had to go without heat or electricity for a period of time. And you recognize that at DTE and know how tough it can be. But we're gonna celebrate.
We're gonna celebrate.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Celebrate everything that's good about Detroit, about the country, about the world, and make sure that people are feeling good when they leave we're gonna give praise, we're gonna shout a little bit and we're really gonna make sure that people have a good time.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: I think that with both of our featured artists, we're gonna shout a lot.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah, Jeremiah Town from, from Flint. He'll be there and it's gonna be a great show.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: So how do you come up with the idea, the background of doing Hallelujah for Heat? What's the process like?
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Well, we do have a lot of meetings, a lot of arguing going back and forth.
Yeah. You know, understanding, you know, what does the community need, who's gonna come, who's gonna make it what we want it to be. And we have, we have a couple of people that are in church, ministers, other people that sing tomorrow. Nolan is a minute, is a minister in Flint, has her own church. And she said, Mark, you got to do this one big Don. If you really want to do it right, you're going to have John P. Key and Jeremiah with you. And I think this what that'll get what you want. The executives will feel it, they'll feel positive about it, they'll make sure that it comes back again and the community will, will get what they've always gotten in this concert. Something that they can go home and create a buzz about. And that's why we went with this based on her recommendation. A lot of it. And it's really an all hands on deck operation. I mean everybody from our comms team to thaws team, all of our teams really work together over a number of months to kind of pull this together, to make sure that all of the customers who come have a great experience. And then we use ZB1 Associates. It's a Fisk thing too. Yeah, I went to Fisk, Zafar went to Fisk and I know that he has put on almost like 350 concerts a year in his old previous positions.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: And I brought him on board to kind of help us and find the right act to make sure that we could afford it and all that kind of thing. And he's done a miraculous job.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: It is so cool. And one of the things that people know right now, John P. Key has a new project out and it's a celebration of his old stuff and new stuff. So it's going to be amazing. It's going to be a great night and I love his energy and I'm looking forward to being your host.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Well, we're looking forward to it too. And it's not that far away.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: You know, and if you want to Come to this event. It's a free event.
It said 7707 West Outer Drive, Fellowship Chapel, October 25th. And you gotta. We want you to. Anybody can come first come, first come, first serve. But we do want you to go to Eventbrite if you can and register. If you show up and you know you haven't done it, we're going to try to let you in first. But the capacity is 1760.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: And so that means you got to get there. The event starts at 7, doors open at 6. Can you give that. That link for me? Absolutely. Mark. The link to The Eventbrite is dte h4h2025.eventbrite.com one more time. Dte h4h2025.Eventbrite.com and you can go to.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Eventbrite.Com and just look up John P. Key in Detroit. And it will come up as well. Just to make it a little simpler if we.
But I'm looking forward to this thing to be packed out, people enjoying Fellowshipping with each other, just getting into the spirit and being happy that, you know, DTE and Thaw are joining together for such a wonderful, wonderful event.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Come have fun. Enjoy yourselves. We want it to be packed out. We brought it back because the people wanted it. Everywhere we went. Please bring back Hallelujah for Heat and the executives. Listen, we're doing what they want. Let's get it going. And we hope to see you then the 14th time. And a couple things just want to mention, just wanted to thank Reverend Wendell Anthony and the team at Fellowship. They've been so great in helping us get organized and put this on.
Also October 30th, a few days after Hallelujah, Fajit, we will be having a customer resource fair also at Fellowship Chapel. And so we will be, you know, helping customers, assisting them, paying their bills. We have some other wraparound services that we'll have there. Customers need to know if they need bill assistance, that they need to get a SCR State Emergency Relief Application in before they come. They can get that@newmi bridges.Michigan.gov that's where they can go and apply.
Then once they get approved, then they can come to the customer Resource Fair to get the assistance.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: And this is like the old CAD days that people know what that is before when you used to go to the place to the event and get help. That's what they're going to be doing again.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: That is amazing. We need that in the city. We need that in our neighborhood. So I thank y' all both for doing that again. It's hallelujah for heat, the 14th year at Fellowship Chapel.
You can get
[email protected] and again, mark.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Jones, thank you very much. And Don Defoe, thank you very much.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Thank you.
