Michelle Elizabeth Fallena

Michelle Fallena is well known to the entire Hannan Center Community: visitors, staff, participants, caregivers, volunteers, artists, and tenants. If you’ve visited the Center in recent years, you’ve likely been greeted by Michelle, then seen her zipping around, to deliver a message, wash a dish, straighten a painting, lay a perfectly decorated table, or another of the hundred things she does to help our community here thrive. For many she is the embodiment of the spirit of Hannan, and a testament to its place in the community. But her interest and energy extend far past Hannan. Michelle has been a resident- and champion- of downtown Detroit for decades, and in recent years has raised her voice on behalf of seniors, determined to make sure that the heart of the city stays safe and accessible to its oldest residents. She’s a board member of the United Community Housing Coalition and a goodwill ambassador, volunteer, and an event coordinator for many of Detroit’s major annual festivals and celebrations. She’s a columnist for local publications, a cookbook author, and novelist, a curator, and a decorator. An active member of her church community and the Bernardine Franciscan Sisters, and a world-class ballroom dancer. A Renaissance woman in the Renaissance City.

Michelle leaves to cherish her loving memory to her brother friend, Eugene A. Fitzgerald, and her sister friend, Beverly A. Holman; a host of friends, co-workers, co-residents and those whose lives she touched in a meaningful special way.

‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[a] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”