Madonna is more known for her controversies, but it was her charitable work on display when she brought the Rebel Heart Tour to her hometown Detroit last week. She brought Angel Tyler of the Empowerment Plan—a group that seeks to break the cycle of homelessness by hiring homeless parents from shelters as full-time seamstresses to make coats and sleeping bags for homeless people living on the street—
on stage to dance with her at the end of the show. She also
plugged both the Empowerment Plan and Downtown Boxing Gym, gave a shoutout to developer and philanthropist Dan Gilbert—who famously moved Quicken Loans corporate headquarters to downtown Detroit—and predicted a comeback for the Motor City.
More from the Detroit Free Press:
More than a year after providing financial support to several community organizations, Madonna name-checked two of them (the Empowerment Plan and Downtown Boxing Gym) from the Joe Louis stage, and spoke enthusiastically about her working relationship with Gilbert, the Quicken Loans magnate and downtown developer.
"Detroit made me who I am today, so I want to say thank you with these next few songs," she said while easing into a stretch that included "Rebel Heart," dedicated to her dad somewhere out in the crowd, 84-year-old Silvio Ciccone.
If you're looking to support the Detroit comeback, here are three charities that the Queen of Pop endorsed last year:
A quick YouTube search didn't turn up any good video from the Detroit show, but here's a video from the tour's New York stop, just for fun: