Michigan Community Rallies Around Basketball Coach
"GMA" announces its second stop on its "At Your House" tour.
April 27, 2009 -- In these days of recession, millions of families across the countries have found themselves in hard times, but few have taken harder hits than Keisha Brown of Mount Pleasant, Mich.
"GMA" has announced the second location for the next installment of the "At Your House Series" — Ashland, Va. If you live in the Ashland area, click here to find out how you can see the show live.
Brown steadfastly battles financial uncertainty, an impending job cutback and even breast cancer, all while raising a 3-year-old daughter named Angel with her husband Damon. But like so many other Americans, she and her husband are not fighting alone.
Almost every step of the way, the other residents of Mount Pleasant have joined in to do what they can to help, and in the process they have become like the Browns' extended family.
"Mount Pleasant is truly a community where I don't mind raising a family," Brown told "Good Morning America" in an e-mail. "My daughter is my world and where she grows up is important to my husband and I. I want her to be in a community with strong family values and surrounded by people who will look out for her. This is Mount Pleasant. The community promotes family first."
Keisha Brown is the athletic director and school counselor at Sacred Heart Academy, a small Catholic elementary school in downtown Mount Pleasant, as well as the varsity boys' basketball coach.
Her husband, the coordinator of student activities at Central Michigan University, also coaches the girls' varsity team at Sacred Heart.
A predominately white school, Brown is the only black member of the staff at Sacred Heart Academy, and all of the boys and girls on her and her husband's teams are white.
Nevertheless, the school is one of the main reasons she considers Mount Pleasant to be a critical part of their family. From weekly fish fry dinners during Lent to cheering on Mount Pleasant basketball, Sacred Heart Academy has seeped into all aspects of the Browns' life.
"With coaching, my husband and I use it as a life-skills tool. Our kids were able to learn about adversity and how to be strong and fight in any situation," Brown said.
The students and larger community have been through it all with the Browns -- including cancer.
