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Amy Good was 11 when her family moved to Michigan from Pittsburgh in 1968, a year after the five-day Detroit rebellion that resulted in the death of 43 people. Although her parents were interested in moving to Detroit, she says, her father’s co-workers urged him not to, so they purchased a home in Farmington Hills instead. “The neighborhood we lived in was very, very white,” Good says. “They regretted that they did not take the opportunity to raise us in an integrated neighborhood.”

However, her father, an attorney, and her mother, who worked in publishing and consumer relations, made sure to raise their five children with a focus on social justice and civil rights. Her parents supported foster children by inviting them to their home during the holidays or by taking them to baseball games. “Investing in our communities and our obligation to make the world a better place motivated all of us, probably, to seek careers where we were making a difference for people and for our communities,” Good says.

By 1980, Good had graduated with a bachelor’s in psychology and a master’s in social work from the University of Michigan. She became a caseworker and program director at Barat Human Services and moved into a large home with seven other women in Southwest Detroit. There, they saw firsthand the impact Detroit’s economic turmoil following the rebellion had on locals, especially the girls and women, as gang activity spiked.

“Girls were sometimes treated like barter,” Good says. “For example, it would be a rite of passage to commit rape or to assault or oppress a girl or woman who was affiliated with a gang member in a different gang.”

Around 1985, Good and other locals, including a plumber, police officer, and business owner, began gathering at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church with the Rev. John Meyer and nuns from different orders to discuss how they could help these young women and girls.

Two Sisters of Mercy started inviting girls to their home twice a week for tutoring, arts and crafts, and gardening, while Good searched for examples of street-based outreach programs for girls in the U.S. She didn’t find any. What she did find were eight that focused on boys and young men because they were often “perceived in an unjust way or an inaccurate way of engaging in activities that are threatening to others.” Whereas girls, as a mode of survival, tended to engage in activities that were harmful to themselves, Good says.

With no program to use as an example, members of the community forum met to determine their priorities to help girls and women who were unable to access assistance from the state. Those priorities included providing shelter, offering support and outreach services, and helping girls stay in school, especially as third and fourth graders dropped out to care for their siblings. They took on the name , and Good quit her job to help search for local organizations that would provide these services — finding none.

Good and the pastor sent a proposal to the to request funding for the purpose of creating shelter services for special populations experiencing homelessness — but were declined.

In January 1988, with no funding, a five-bed shelter at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was opened in the parish house to accommodate girls seeking refuge, its founders not knowing a $376,000 check was on its way the following spring because a program HUD had funded returned its grant. “I get chills even now talking about it,” Good says.

They hired additional staff, including two directors for their street outreach and prevention programs; expanded their shelter; and purchased a street outreach van that allowed them to drive throughout the city and provide necessities and information.

Since then, AFG has helped about 37,000 women and girls, whether by providing shelter, helping women safely navigate domestic violence situations, providing support for human trafficking survivors, or offering after-school programming.

Last August, in partnership with , a nonprofit developer, the organization opened the in Detroit, a three-story building with 45 units of affordable housing. There, AFG provides its services and has counselors on-site 40 hours a week. Soon, there will also be an on-site early-childhood day care center.

Good, who was an executive director during the early stages of AFG until becoming CEO around 2000, retired last October after nearly four decades and is proud of what the organization has accomplished thus far. “AFG has contributed to creating a thriving Detroit,” Good says, adding that the thousands of girls and young women they’ve worked with have learned that “they can be leaders and that they have so much to contribute.”

This story originally appeared in the January 2025 issue of ������ Detroit magazine. To read more, including the full list of the 2025 ������ Detroiters pick up a copy of ������ Detroit at a local retail outlet. Our will be available on Jan. 6.��