Pastor sees dream of Woodlawn business center fulfilled

By Kevin Beese Staff reporter

The Rev. Corey Brooks talks about the high hopes he has for the business center in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood as Gov. Bruce Rauner looks on. “The amount of untapped potential in this community is extraordinary,” Brooks said. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

A former Walgreens drug store is being looked at as a remedy for one of the issues plaguing Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood, which has been labeled “one of the worst neighborhoods in America.”

A business innovation incubator, the brain child of Corey Brooks, pastor of New Beginnings Church, will provide work spaces and a training center for small businesses, community organizations and individuals on Chicago’s South Side.

The Project H.O.O.D Leadership and Economic Opportunity Center, located at 6330 S. King Drive, will provide co-sharing, member-based work spaces; leadership training; business workshops and seminars; training for the construction trades; entrepreneurial classes; and business events. Programs at the facility will range from carpentry to journalism to financial literacy.

The center will house construction certification and training; a business and entrepreneur hub; a Women’s Entrepreneur Center; youth mentoring; a media program; and a trainee-run restaurant and cafe.

“The amount of untapped potential in this community is extraordinary, and that is what we will see bloom with this new center,” Brooks said. “Our community has drive and passion. They just need the opportunity to find the path to their destiny.”

Brooks is the founder and leader of Project H.O.O.D. — which stands for “Helping Others Obtain Destiny” — a nonprofit organization.

Walgreens donated the building to Project H.O.O.D after it closed its Woodlawn location. Brooks raised funds to transform the old drug store into a 20,000-square foot business center.

“This corner will go from happy & healthy to happy & wealthy,” John Gremer, director of community affairs for Walgreens, said at last week’s unveiling of the business center.

Gov. Bruce Rauner labeled Brooks’ business center a true private/public partnership.

“This is private citizens stepping up and donating. This is community leaders setting the stage and leading the charge,” Rauner said. “This is also about government stepping up and playing a role too; and I’m very proud as the governor of the great state of Illinois to make sure that our administration is helping achieve great things in economic opportunity in every neighborhood in every community across the state.”

The Illinois Department of Commerce will finance some of the job training that will take place in the Project H.O.O.D. Center, Rauner noted.

State Sen. Jim Oberweis said he has never met a man more concerned about his parishioners than the Rev. Corey Brooks, pastor of New Beginnings Church and founder of the Project H.O.O.D. Leadership and Economic Opportunity Center. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

Brooks said the facility will be a place where dreams come true, where entrepreneurs get on their feet.

“This is going to be a place where individuals can come and have fresh ideas and see those fresh ideas come to fruition, just like this place,” Brooks said at the business center’s unveiling. “It’s an idea that came to fruition. I believe that some of the greatest ideas, some of the greatest inventions, some of the greatest businesses, some of the greatest entrepreneurs are yet to be seen and they’re coming out of Woodlawn from the South Side of Chicago and they are going to come from places just like this.”

The pastor came to national attention in 2012 when he lived on a rooftop directly across from his church for three winter months to dramatize the plight of teenage shootings and murders occurring on a daily basis in his neighborhood. He raised enough money through his efforts to demolish a nearby hotel that was being occupied by drug dealers and prostitutes.

Almost one-third of Woodlawn and Englewood residents live in poverty. The two Chicago neighborhoods have an unemployment rate of 16.8 percent and an average income of $14,236. Nearly 28 percent of the population does not have a high school diploma.

“These kids are coming in with maybe a high school diploma or GED, but that’s it. They have everything going against them,” said Manny Cunningham, a Project H.O.O.D. skilled trades program instructor and a member of the Illinois chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. “Working with Project H.O.O.D. gives them something to be proud of and a bright career to work toward. I’ve been working with Project H.O.O.D. for a year now and to see the difference that a set of skills and a job can make to a kid, to families and to a community has been life-changing.”

Robert Blackwell Jr., who has formed Chicago-based companies including Killerspin, a table tennis equipment, apparel and promotion firm, said the business center will help focus attention on the city’s South and West sides need to land economic activity.

“We have to entice every company to create jobs in these communities to support families,” Blackwell said.

 

 

 

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