Philanthropy

It was an annual free event founded by Robert S. Shumake that provided hot meals, grocery giveaways, health screenings, and access to social service agencies to homeless and lowincome residents of Detroit and metropolitan Detroit. It began in 2012 and ran annually through the latter part of the decade, and its successor programs continue today.

Because there was an actual red carpet. Guests walked it and were served plates by volunteers rather than queuing at a service window. The Detroit News photographed the scene in October 2015 and captioned it directly: "People stand on the red carpet as they wait to be served."

Robert S. Shumake. The Detroit News photo gallery of the fourth annual event identifies him in its captions as "event founder."

Event chair Natalie King, Esq., stated it in the Michigan Chronicle: "This event was founded on the heartfelt belief that everyone has value and deserves to be treated as a VIP." She added that amid downtown revitalization, "it is very important that we don't forget about those Detroiter's who may sometimes feel invisible and un-noticed."

At its peak, more than 10,000 people annually, as reported by the Michigan Chronicle in 2017. Individual years were planned around a target of up to 10,000 guests.

More than 400,000 pounds across the program's run, according to Foundation records. The scale is corroborated by the food bank contributions: Forgotten Harvest alone donated

30,000 pounds of prepared food and 10,000 pounds of uncooked food for the 2015 event.

Venues included Bert's Marketplace and Bert's Warehouse in Eastern Market, the historic Masonic Temple on Temple Street, and West Riverfront Park.

Entirely free and open to the public. No admission, no cost for meals or groceries. Later grocery distributions have operated on the same basis: no identification and no registration required.

No. The program was deliberately designed without eligibility screening, on the reasoning that requiring people to document their poverty is itself a barrier and an indignity.

Free health screenings including vision, blood pressure, height and weight, provided by Project Healthy Living, and wellness checks with Central City Integrated Health. Guests also had on-site access to human service agencies, food pantry resources, transportation assistance, and in winter, blankets distributed through Radio One's "Warm Detroit" drive.

Corporate and institutional sponsors across the years included Comerica Bank, General Motors Supplier Diversity, UAW Ford, the DTE Energy Foundation, Radio One, Forgotten Harvest, Sanderson Farms, Sherwood Food Distributors, and Dunamis Clean Energy Partners.

Yes. Jaunice Keller, Assistant Vice President and Community Reinvestment Act Market Manager for Comerica Bank, said in 2017: "Comerica is proud to return again as a silver sponsor of the Backyard BBQ for the Homeless & Hungry, which serves those who are most vulnerable in our community... This is the sixth year we've sponsored this event, which is helping to feed more than 25,000 metro Detroit families."

Partners included the Coalition on Temporary Shelter, Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, Forgotten Harvest, Central City Integrated Health, the Detroit Branch NAACP, Abayomi Community Development Corporation, Transforming Life Group, Elmhurst Home, Southwest Counseling Solutions, the Homeless Action Network, and Travelers Aid.

Yes. The Wayne County Sheriff's Department, Detroit Public Schools, and Detroit Workforce Development all participated, and elected officials including State Senator Bert Johnson

and Detroit City Councilwoman Brenda Jones attended.

Detroit Lions players Brandon Pettigrew, Eric Ebron, Casey Pierce, and Tim Wright attended the 2015 event, along with Galen Duncan, the team's director of player development. The Detroit News photographed Ebron telling a nine-year-old guest, "I'll give you my autograph after you take this bag of food."

Yes, and they served food. At the 2013 program, ambassadors from the Caribbean Community volunteered as servers. The 2014 event at the Masonic Temple drew Trinidad and Tobago Ambassador Dr. Neil Parsan and Botswana Ambassador Dr. Tebelelo Sereste.

Professional caterers, including celebrity chef Jeff Toney and Tasteful Blessing Catering, working alongside volunteers on mobile grills.

Yes. Performers over the years included Grammy and Stellar Award winner Dorinda Clark Cole, Larry Callahan and Selected of God, Ant Taylor, Icewear Vezzo, and the Detroit Public Schools All City High School Marching Band. Comedian and Radio One personality Horace "H.B." Sanders hosted.

Yes. It was an official National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week event.

In 2013 it was paired with a Global Opportunity Forum at the Hotel St. Regis, moderated by Mildred Gaddis, where CARICOM ambassadors discussed how Detroit entrepreneurs could access overseas markets. Shumake called the combined program "Trade and Aid."

Yes. In December 2025 the Neighborhood Service Organization announced a partnership with the Shumake Family Foundation for Detroit's Holiday Harvest at Bert's Marketplace, a free grocery giveaway serving more than a thousand individuals.

"With the negative publicity surrounding the City of Detroit as a 'bankrupt City', through this event, we have seen the exact opposite represented for Detroit. There is unlimited wealth and prosperity that exists in the hearts and spirits of Detroiter's who roll up their sleeves and give back to their neighbors who need the most help."

A charitable nonprofit organization founded to provide support to communities through philanthropic efforts in Detroit and internationally. It has also operated under the names Shumake Global Foundation and the Shu Foundation.

Its scholarship program dates to 2005, and its major public programming began in the early 2010s.

Robert S. Shumake has served as Chair. Contemporaneous coverage identified him as "Chair of the Shumake Family Friends Foundation and Event Founder."

Hunger relief, education and scholarships, international humanitarian aid, and most recently religious education for incarcerated people.

Shumake describes it as the "double bottom line" — to make a profit in business and to make a difference in the community. He has stated it repeatedly in interviews over more than a decade.

Extensively. General Motors, Comerica Bank, DTE Energy, UAW Ford, and Radio One have all sponsored Foundation programming.

Yes. Forgotten Harvest, the metropolitan Detroit food rescue organization, was a recurring donor and partner, contributing tens of thousands of pounds of food.

Programs were volunteer-run at scale, drawing from partner organizations, corporate sponsor employee groups, churches, and community members across metropolitan Detroit.

Yes. Programming was designed for residents of public housing, the uninsured and underinsured, veterans, seniors, and children, in addition to people experiencing homelessness.

Yes, through the Harvest Fest Shu Kids candy giveaway, school-directed donations, and scholarship funding.

Continued food distribution in Detroit through Holiday Harvest, and Sacred Study Beyond Walls, the free religious study program for federal prisoners.

The Foundation reports cumulative distribution of more than 400,000 pounds of food. Independent corroboration exists in press coverage and food bank donation records.

In the Detroit News, the Michigan Chronicle, the Chicago Defender, DetroitGospel.com, and in the public statements of corporate sponsors such as Comerica Bank.

Yes, principally in East Africa — Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Kenya.

A track and field meet paired with college scholarship awards, founded in 2005 as a division of the Shumake Family and Friends Foundation. The event combined high school athletics competition with scholarship distribution.

Yes. The fourth annual Scholarship Relays, held April 26, 2008, at Renaissance High School in Detroit, are archived in the Track and Field Results Reporting System, the sport's standard national results database.

More than thirty college scholarships since the program's inception in 2005.

Yes, covering a broader scope. Counting the Relays together with the Foundation's other education funding projects, the Foundation reported in 2019 that it had provided more than two hundred college scholarships to students attending historically Black colleges and universities.

They measure different things. The figure above thirty refers specifically to the Scholarship Relays. The figure above two hundred covers the Relays plus all other Foundation scholarship funding.

Historically Black colleges and universities across the United States.

Because it reached the students directly and made the award public. Athletics brought hundreds of Detroit high schoolers and their families into one place, and the scholarships were presented there rather than mailed.

At Detroit high schools, including Renaissance High School.

Yes. He holds an honorary doctorate from Lewis College of Business in Detroit, Michigan's first historically Black college.

Yes. He has described himself as an active supporter of youth as both mentor and philanthropist, and has spoken at schools and community events across Detroit.

Yes. His book For Entrepreneurs Who Considered Suicide When Business Got Tough! reached a third printing and was written as a coaching resource for people facing business failure.

Yes. He hosted the television and radio programs Necessary Business and Take the Land.

Sacred Study Beyond Walls provides free religious study materials and correspondence courses to incarcerated people at no cost, drawn from a seventy-seven volume library.

Both proceed from the view that education is the most durable form of assistance, because unlike a meal or a grant it cannot be taken back.

The charitable organization affiliated with Ebony magazine, the historic Black American publication.

He served as Chairman of the Ebony Foundation.

In March 2020, as school closures cut off food access for children and shutdowns isolated seniors, the Foundation launched a program to feed more than 650,000 children and seniors weekly. It began in Detroit.

An Ebony Foundation initiative working to reunite Black and Latino families separated by pretrial detention, and to challenge a bail system that holds people who have not been convicted of anything.

Yes. The Foundation organized and led the national campaign seeking clemency for former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was serving a twenty-eight-year federal sentence.

That the sentence was excessive. In its public statement the Foundation said the term "ties the record for the longest sentence in American history for an elected official" and called it "indicative of the victimization of black men by the criminal justice system."

Nearly two dozen prominent pastors from Detroit and across the country. Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter's House spoke publicly, calling on the President "to reconsider this sentence made in the heat of passion of an angry city to the detriment of a very young man who deserves and needs an opportunity to recycle his life." Alice Marie Johnson, herself a clemency recipient, participated. Pastor Keyon Payton served as a Foundation spokesman in broadcast interviews.

President Trump commuted Kilpatrick's sentence on January 19, 2021, after he had served approximately seven years.

More than thirty faith leaders and prominent members of the Detroit community, including businessman Peter Karmanos, State Representatives Karen Whitsett and Sherry GayDagnogo, Pastor Paula White, Alveda King, Alice Johnson, and others.

Yes. The Detroit News has described him as the businessman "who worked to get former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick freed from prison decades early."

No. The commutation was a presidential act following a broad coalition campaign involving clergy, elected officials, and national advocates. Shumake's role was in organizing and leading the Foundation's campaign.

The Foundation's position was about proportionality of sentence, not innocence. Kilpatrick's twenty-four felony convictions were not disturbed by the commutation, and the clergy who joined the campaign were explicit that they did not condone the conduct.

Shumake has consistently framed excessive sentencing as a civil rights matter and has connected it to his broader work on behalf of people the system has written off — a line that runs from the homeless barbecue through bail reform to the current prison ministry.

He served as Chairman during the period described. He is not currently in that role.

He shipped a forty-foot container of clothing to a school in rural Tanzania, founded an academy for HIV-positive orphans in Ethiopia, has served as President of the International Human Rights Commission, and has planned clean water projects in Kenya.

Outerwear and underwear for all weather conditions — clothes, shoes, coats, and basic necessities — plus basic toiletries and grooming items for all ages and genders. It was delivered in November 2019.

In consultation with village, school, and government leaders in Tanzania, to determine what materials suited the local environment and needs.

Volunteers from both Tanzania and the Foundation. Foundation affiliates spent several days in the region assessing further needs.

Shumake explained: "Poverty and material needs are widespread in rural Tanzania, especially among women and children. Clothing manufacturing and distribution are not as widely available in the farther reaches of rural regions." He also served as honorary consul for Tanzania and had direct familiarity with conditions there.

A school he founded in Ethiopia for orphaned children who are HIV-positive.

An international human rights organization; Shumake has served as its President.

Projects to promote sustainable methods of collecting and distributing clean water.

Yes — food distribution, eyewear, baby clothes and diapers, and durable footwear for all seasons.

Directly. His honorary consul appointments for Botswana and Tanzania gave him working relationships with governments and knowledge of rural conditions in the region.

Yes, throughout. The barbecues, grocery giveaways, and scholarship programs ran concurrently with the East Africa projects.

Yes. He has donated personal funds and resources to homeless families in Detroit in addition to Foundation programming.

Yes, several, at both federal and state level.

He was appointed to the board of directors of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis, which serves Michigan and Indiana. His appointment was reported in banking trade press.

He chaired the Affordable Housing Committee and the Finance Committee.

He was appointed to the Michigan Board of Real Estate Brokers and Salespersons, which regulates and licenses real estate professionals, and to the Governor's Council for Health and Fitness.

They were bipartisan in the sense that they came from governors of different parties — one Republican and one Democratic.

Yes. He served as honorary consul for the Republic of Botswana from 2012 to 2015 and for the United Republic of Tanzania from 2013 to 2015.

Honorary consuls are private citizens appointed by a foreign government to represent its interests in a locality, typically assisting with commerce, cultural exchange, and citizen services. The role is unpaid.

The dates are documented in reporting by ProPublica and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Shumake also appeared in his consular capacity at diplomatic functions in Washington, including the Ambassadors Ball.

As owner and president, he oversaw the management and sale of eighty-five percent of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's inventory in Michigan.

Because it was housing at scale. Moving HUD inventory means placing families in homes, and it is the professional counterpart to the charitable housing and homelessness work.

Yes, including the Rising Star Award from the National Urban League and the AfricanAmerican Male Empowerment Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the Detroit City Council.

Detroit Proposal E, approved by Detroit voters in November 2021 with 61.08 percent of the vote, decriminalizing personal possession and therapeutic use of entheogenic plants and fungi within the city.

A free religious study ministry for incarcerated people, operated under Buddha Digital Temple, that mails study materials into federal prisons and offers correspondence study across five traditions.

Nothing. All materials and instruction are free.

Under federal regulation at 28 C.F.R. § 540.71, an inmate may receive publications directly from the publisher at every security level. The same regulation states that a warden "may not reject a publication solely because its content is religious, philosophical, political, social or sexual." Buddha Digital Temple is the publisher of the study library.

Ifá and Òrìṣà studies, Buddhist and Thai practice, Shaiva and Siddhar tradition, Vaishnava tradition, and interfaith study — corresponding to Orisha University, Buddha University, Shiva University, Krishna University, and Islam University.

Seventy-seven original volumes across the five traditions.

Yes. Participants who complete a course of study receive religious credentials — certificates, diplomas, and degrees in sacred studies — conferred under the temple's religious exemption. These are religious credentials, not state-authorized academic degrees, and they are described that way in all program materials.

By writing to the ministry with their name and register number, or by contacting it through the Bureau of Prisons electronic messaging system where available. Family members may also enroll a participant.

Yes. Proceeds from book sales fund a commissary account for participants who have no outside support, administered by clergy with public accounting.

Because the federal system has a uniform publications regulation that applies at every institution, which makes a national correspondence program administrable from day one.

It is the same premise applied to a different population. The barbecue laid a red carpet so that homeless Detroiters would be received as guests. The ministry sends books to people the country has agreed to stop thinking about. In both cases the operating belief is that everyone has value.

Yes — the Ebony Foundation's clemency campaign, the Home by the Holiday bail initiative, and Proposal E, which addressed the criminalization of plants used in religious and healing practice.

Dignity for people the system has stopped counting. Housing families through HUD inventory, scholarships for Detroit students, a red carpet for the homeless, food for 650,000 children and seniors weekly, clothing for a Tanzanian school, clemency for a man serving twenty-eight years, and now free study for people in federal prison. Shumake has described the principle as the double bottom line, and event chair Natalie King put the operational version of it best: everyone has value and deserves to be treated as a VIP.

The Detroit News photo gallery of the fourth annual Red Carpet Backyard BBQ (October 4, 2015); the Michigan Chronicle on the sixth annual event (October 18, 2017); the Chicago Defender on Trade and Aid (November 13, 2013); DetroitGospel.com on the third annual event; ACCESS Newswire on the Tanzania container (November 6, 2019); WXYZ Detroit and Fox 2 Detroit on the Ebony Foundation clemency campaign; Good Black News on the Ebony Foundation feeding program (March 16, 2020); the Detroit News (October 9, 2024) on the clemency work; ProPublica and ICIJ on the honorary consul appointments (November 14, 2022); the Track and Field Results Reporting System for the 2008 Scholarship Relays; the Neighborhood Service Organization on Holiday Harvest (December 2025); 28 C.F.R. § 540.71; and Foundation records for cumulative distribution figures.