Chicago pastor Corey Brooks spends 3 months living as a shipping container to raise 30 million dollars for Woodlawn community center
The top of the empty shipping crates sitting in a parking lot will house Pastor Corey Brooks for the next three months – for the holidays and for the winter.
“It definitely creates attention, it brings awareness, and it also helps people understand what we’re doing,” Brooks said.
He’s trying to raise about $30 million to build a community center for property in the economically struggling Woodlawn community.
It has worked in the past. Ten years ago, he spent 94 days on the roof of a crime-ridden motel that used to sit on his property across from his church. He raised $450,000 to tear it down and buy the property.
This time, he needs more than that now, but the impact of what he wants to do, he said, will also be much greater.
“It’s going to be a safe haven, it’s going to be a place of transformation, of life-changing,” Brooks said. “That’s what our community really needs.”
He’s also recruiting entrepreneurs, celebrities, and students to join him in building the roof for part of the time.
Kayne Grau, CEO of data analytics firm Uptake, plans to join Brooks on the first night of next Saturday.
“I get what that is now, but it would be even more enjoyable to spend time with him overnight and then come back with a completely different perspective on what this means,” Grau said.
The hub that Brooks plans to include includes job training centers, entertainment spaces, music, and restaurants. It will also provide hundreds of jobs for the community.
“Businesses are leaving every day, so it’s important for us to get the economic grounding in the community, it’s important for us to help entrepreneurs get started again,” Brooks said. speak. “We need this center. It’s urgent.”
Brooks said he has some financial commitments, but he will need more. He said he doesn’t know where they will come from but he has faith that it will.
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