A letter from
Pastor Corey Brooks

When I moved onto the rooftop of an abandoned motel on Chicago's South Side in 2011, people thought I was crazy.

Maybe I was. But I had made a promise — to the young people I was burying every week, to the families who were losing sons and brothers to streets that offered no other options, to a neighborhood that the rest of the world had decided to write off. I was going to stay until something changed.

That something is Project H.O.O.D.

Helping Others Obtain Destiny started with a vision and not much else. No building. No budget. Just the belief that Woodlawn — our neighborhood, your neighborhood — deserved the same investment as any other community in this city. That the people here had gifts, drive, and potential that nobody was being asked to tap.

Fifteen years later, I watch young men walk out of our workforce program and into jobs that pay a living wage. I watch women who came through our re-entry program open businesses on the same blocks where they once felt trapped. I watch kids who had no safe place to go after school become mentors for the kids coming up behind them. And I watch our new LEO Center — the Leadership and Economic Opportunities Center — rise up as proof that Woodlawn isn't being left behind. We are building forward.

None of this happens without you.

When you give to Project H.O.O.D., you aren't writing a check to an organization. You are investing directly in a person. A young man in our violence interruption program who needed someone to call him at 2 a.m. instead of letting him make a decision he couldn't take back. A mother getting her first apartment after re-entry because we helped her get documents, references, and a second chance. A teenager who learned to code, to lead, to believe that his life could look different than what he'd been handed.

Every dollar stays here. In Woodlawn. On the block.

We don't have a national overhead. We don't have layers between your gift and the people it reaches. We have a community — and the people in it are counting on us to keep showing up.

I am asking you to show up with us.

Give what you can. Give monthly if you're able. Tell someone else about us. Come to an event. Volunteer. Partner with us. However you choose to be part of this work, I promise you this: we will be faithful stewards of what you invest.

Woodlawn is not a charity case. It is a community in motion. And with your support, there is no limit to what we build next.