A Time to Fellowship in Unity.
2021 was a year of and ups and downs. The entire Black community from coast-to-coast seen everything from terrorism and oppression, to protests and COVID-19. Here in Detroit specifically we seen important elections and significant investments. These yet still were alongside continued socioeconomic challenges for the greater community. As a young professional association, we focused on being flexible through all the changes and turmoil of the year. Our main goal was to continue to unite, develop, and volunteer in whatever ways were feasible.
Time to Let Loose!
Thanks to improved vaccination rates and reduced hospitalizations, COVID restrictions were lifted enough to allow some more “normal” events to be held. Although the much-missed Black Affinity Organizations Holiday Party was again not held this year, BYP still decided to do something on our own and as an ole to our past. So this year we went “back to basics” and reignited a favorite: an ugly sweater party!
On December 16, 2021 we at Black Young Professionals of Metro Detroit held our second unpretentious holiday party entitled Ugly Sweater II: Cocktails & Candy Canes Edition. This year’s event had a theme of Christmas and candy cane decorations. It also featured expertly crafted “Grinch” and “Holiday Cheer” cocktails, along with comfort food and desserts to match.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a BYP holiday party without the highly anticipated competition for the most repulsive sweater in the crowd. With many contestants, we had a hard time cutting the field down, and still had a close call at the end!
But that’s not all! We also brought out an entire host of card games and other classics such as Giant Jenga. We even had a surprise session of musical chairs! Who knew 20 and 30-somethings still love the thrill of sneakily dancing around a set of chairs to unpredictable music?!
Business Card Raffle Winner
Yet, in the midst of all this, we wanted to also have a Black business element. So we encouraged solopreneurs and service practitioners to submit their business cards to our evening’s Black Business raffle. After countless cards were stuffed into our box we found a winner:
Raffle Card Winner:
Rasheda Kamaria Williams
Mentor, Author, Speaker
Chief EmPOWERING Officer
Empowered Flower Girl
info@rashedakamaria.com | Facebook | Instagram
Giving Back
Our first order of business was for the organization to give back to our members and supporters. This year every guest recieved a surprise gift before departing. Additionally, raffles were held throughout the night to give away even more awesome holiday goodies.
We welcomed tons of new people into the BYP family inside of the Black-owned D-Loft in Hamtramck. A great time was had by all, new people to the community made connections, and holiday cheer was aplenty. And to close the day out we made a sizable donation to the Detroit Rescue Mission after the party.
Now that’s unity giving back to the community!
We MUST give a huge thank you to our fabulous disk jockey of the evening, DJ Jus-E-Nuff, Justin C. Walker for keeping the people happy and moving.
We’ll see you in 2022.