Rev. Corey Brooks brought attention to his Woodlawn community and his cause when he camped out on a Chicago rooftop for almost a year to raise funds for a new community centre.

Now, with an $8 million donation from the McCormick Foundation announced early this month and a total of $28.5 million raised so far, the “rooftop pastor” is closer than ever to realizing his dream.

Below is an interview of Rev. Corey with Window to the World Communications (WTTW):

Talk a little about your vision for this community centre and the different spaces and amenities it will provide.         

So the centre is all about creating opportunities and transformation of our neighbourhood and our people. We plan to make sure that the centre includes resources that will enhance people’s lives to help them get back on the right track. Resources like our trade classes — carpentry, electrical, HVAC, automotive — so that people can be trained and be skilled labourers to get jobs that will help them take care of their families. We also have a wonderful STEM computer lab. We have the music and TV production studio. We’re trying to teach people not just to be in front of the camera but all the wonderful skills working behind the camera, as well.

We have three restaurants, and we have a culinary arts kitchen where we’re going to be teaching using those restaurants and the kitchen to teach hospitality and restaurant management.

We also have a trauma counselling facility where people can get the counselling that they need, especially for individuals who have been impacted by violence.

We have entrepreneurial classrooms and financial literacy training. We’re really excited that we have an Olympic-sized swimming pool, two basketball courts and a 400-seat theatre.

Explain why it’s so important to build a space like this in a community like Woodlawn that has seen so much disinvestment over so many decades. Why is that so important to you?

So the importance of our structure and how it looks is really important so that people can take true love and ownership of the neighbourhood. Secondly, it’s important that we make such a large investment because our neighbourhoods have gone without for so long without the opportunities that other neighbourhoods have had. And so a lot of people have lost hope. A lot of people have given up their dreams and their aspirations. So we wanted to create a place where people can dream again. And then we wanted safe spaces. You know it’s bad when young people and children can’t even go outside for activities and be kids. So we wanted to make sure we have a place that not only has programs, but it’s a place that young people can have fun and they can be kids and know that they’re in a safe space.

How do you hope this centre will impact the broader community and some of the issues that it faces, such as poverty, persistent violence and a lack of economic development?

Well, we believe it’s going to be a catalyst for transformation and impact the community in a major way because we already see the work that we’re doing work. Violence in our immediate area is down 50%, while you can see other parts of the city still going up.  We believe that with the building of this centre that we can build capacity and scale to help more people and when we do that, it’s going to have a drastic impact on the violence and it’s going to have a drastic impact on the poverty. People are going to be skilled, people are going to be trained, and they’re going to be inspired. And when that happens, we believe that they take not just ownership, but they begin to build pride and self-worth. And you need those things along with opportunities for the community to really experience transformation.

Let’s talk a little bit about the donations that you’ve received. The headline donation is the one from the McCormick Foundation, but you also got $5 million from Ken Griffin. You’ve raised $28.5 million. How much more do you need to raise? When do you hope you can really begin construction in earnest on this project?

So our goal is to start on the ground in April.  We want to raise at a very minimum another $6.5 million that will put us at our $35 million goal. But we’re going to continue to fundraise. We want to make sure that we’re still able to pay everything and be debt-free, along with creating an endowment so that our programs continue in the midst of whatever happens.

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