When a naked and bloody victim of gang violence ran into his Sunday service, Pastor Corey Brooks committed to staying on the rooftop of the motel that was the headquarters of this nonsense until he had enough money to buy it. 94 days later he succeeded and today his $38 million community center is being built there. The Pastor, along with his nonprofit Project Hood, has improved their neighborhood of Woodlawn from Chicago's 3rd most violent one to the 15th. And they're just getting started.
Hey, everybody, it's a Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks. And we continue now with part two of our conversation with Pastor Corey Brooks. Right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors, let's talk a little church business. Let's talk the back office. Absolutely, the work to church for the unchurch is a beautiful thing, and I get it. Yeah, And I think, you know, I think the corporate church since the fifties and sixties in the United States and large part, has been its own worst enemy in terms of declining membership and participation because the narrative believe like me or you're going to Hell is a pretty tough for sure. And my faith is grace and forgiveness and love and compassion and service. Yes, I think in large part the church has a verse course seeing their ways and started to work hard to put the narrative of what my faith is out there. But there was a long time where that was secondary. And I think in large part the church has been some worsetent.
Me.
So there's a large population of the unchurched who had family members who are Christians or who had been introduced to the church that are reachable, right and guys like you plopping down in areas of need and reaching out to those folks and starting to church the unchurched is I think incredibly valuable needed. Ok But there's a business side of a church. We're not talking about Tammy Fay and jets and massive stuff, all right, that's a different world. What I'm talking about is the reality of a church is it costs some money to run it. Absolutely. You've got to keep the lights on. You've got to pay I think you have to pay you. I know you don't have to pay income, but I think you do have to pay property tax, don't you No, we don't have to pay property tanks. Okay, so you don't have but you got to keep the lights on. The men and women running the church have to have a salary. They free, and you don't want them to be paupers, so you're not going to make them bajillionaires. But they have to feed their family and take care of their children. And you know, so there's there's salaries that have to be paid, there's phone lines that have to be paid. You gotta pay for maintenance on the building. I mean it has to take money, absolutely, And the church gets its money from tithing. Yes, so many of the pastors that I've talked to over the years who have started churches for unchurched, we're afraid that commitment Sunday was one of the things that really turned off prisoners because oh, here they go, ask me for my money, Here comes the offering plate. And they walked a difficult fine line reaching to people who'd been chased out of the church to have the church fun churchdom, while still explaining that tithing was part of the deal because without the tithing, the church doesn't exist, and frankly, were called to do it right, how'd you handle that? Because and was that a thing? Yeah?
Absolutely, here's which I'm not just No, you're right on point. I've always handled stewardship from the standpoint of financial responsibility and accountability. So for us, teaching the tide was just part of it. So even to this day, when we teach about finances, we're teaching about budgeting. We're teaching about living below your mean, not overspending, learning how to be content. We're talking about savings. So we teach people the ten ten eighty rule, you know, stuff like that. So from the very start, we've always taught not just tithing, but we want you to be better financially. And I think that's one of the things that kind of appealed to the younger group that we were reaching, is that they understood, Look, we're not just trying to get you to tie. We want you to be financially accountable, we want.
You to be literate.
Yeah, we want you to be in a position to take care of your family. We're not just trying to get something from you. We're trying to give something to you.
Now.
Part of that is learning how to give to God, putting him first. And when you establish that, I think people receive it a lot different. So they know at our church, they know we're not just talking about finances and money just so we can get something from you. Yeah, that's good stuff, but it's a big thing. You know, even even now. You know, just Sunday I was saying, and I don't look at weekly and monthly ties and offerings and things like that. Annually I'll go back and look and say okay. And so this year when they brought me to report, I was a little taken back because I looked at the tithe and Report of our leaders and the tithe and Report of some of our staff and people who work and I was like, whoa. And I was really really upset, and I was going to just write a model letter and you know, go off, but the Lord convicted me of and I you know, it was and I felt, you know what, it's really more of an indictment on my teaching and preaching. Maybe I need to be a better communicator and teaching about financial responsibility. So that's the way I started keeping my approach there. It's about financial responsibility and financial literacy.
The greatest measure of the success of a leader is the actions of the followers. Absolutely, yeah. And if they ain't getting it right, you gotta look at yourself first. That's the first place, you know, So go to leaders. So go to church, that's right. Yeah, all right, So here comes the Route sixty six church and you're in Woodlawn and across the street there's a hotel. Yeah.
So we're in Woodline. We're the toughest area in Chicago, on the most dangerous street in Chicago twenty fourteen. The Chicago sometimes called it the most dangerous neighborhood in all of Chicago. Some think it's even the most make it in the country. Yes, something I was going to say. Some people think it's one of the most dangerous streets in the country.
So here we are.
We got this church and it's across the street from this motel, and this motel gangs are using it for drug sales and gun sales, and prostitution is going on.
You know.
It's it's called the stroll, you know, where prostitutes are using it to walk in front of and sell them sells. So it was really here we are, this church and you know this this place is right across the street. So something has to be done. So we tried talking to the owner and negotiating with the owner, and none of that work. And two things happened. We want to buy it, Yeah, we wanted to buy it, and he wouldn't sell it. Now I understand why he wouldn't sell it. You know, the gangs were involved, and he was making a lot of illegal money. So and I later found out that he that these sleazy hotels were part of a lot of sleazy hotels across the America owned by a group that was participating in these type of activities. But I didn't find that out until it got later on in the in the process.
But this hotel. It is a sleezy hotel, and.
We're trying to you know, we want to take it on, we want to buy it, so he wouldn't sell it.
Could you see? I think were your parishioners and your personal children walking out and seeing all this mess going on across.
The streets, absolutely, especially a prostitution on Sunday were they were they walking the streets in front of the church. There were prostitutes walking the street. And now I know from hearing you already, you weren't condemning them. No, you probably wanted to reach out, and we were reaching out. We were reaching out. We were trying to get him in programs. We were trying you know, we never would condemn them. We never would still, yeah, but it was it was they were there and one Sunday you said, so, yeah, One Sunday, the gang somebody beat this guy up so bad and he ran into our congregate. Our church was jam packed. He ran in the lobby, but naked, bleeding he had gotten on Sunday mornings stripped him. We were like, okay, we got to do something. So from that point we were like, this is it Monday, I'm going over to talk to this guy who's gonna have to sell this hotel. So I can remember going over and having this big discussion with him, and I remember saying to me, look, there's a church over there, and he pointed at this church that was not too far from us, and then he said, there's a church on that corner down there, and they were there before you got here. And then he said to me, and what makes you think you're gonna do something different? And right there is when I feel like, okay, he's throwing down the gatlin. So the next Sunday, I told our church, we're gonna be protesting out in front of their every Friday and Saturday night. We're going to act like we're filming people going in doing illegal stuff, and we're going to try to shut it down. And so for a whole summer we cut his business off.
And hang on what the gang members not too happy with that, Well, you're not worried about a little shooting. It was It.
Was it was confrontations, it was confroation. The good thing is that we had been in the neighborhood and so people will started joining our church from the neighborhood. So some of these same gang guys were related to people who were in our church, so our members, our members were able to quiet stuff down on a lot, right. So we hadn't had that connection, it probably in the words of our neighborhood, it would have went up for sure. Yeah, okay, so you're protesting. So we're protesting all summer. We're cutting this drying his business up. He's he's hurting. So we got him on the you know, on the ropes. So the name of Jesus, you've grinding them up. Jesus real bad. So uh, I tell people we were gangstering for God. So we're so so new. So the end of the summer comes, the fall comes. He's, you know, in a tough situation. And in November, a young boy in our church gets shot and killed. And that's when things went to a whole other level. We had the funeral at the church. It was a it was a warm day on a Saturday. The kids were walking into the neighborhood from five six blocks away, a very large funeral. And I'm up in the office getting ready, and all of a sudden, I hear semi automatic gunfire and my heart sank because just like she said, she was worried exactly happened. The kids from the block that our churches on started shooting at those kids, and thankfully no one got shot and killed, and it was chaotic. We were still able to have the funeral. After the police came, we debated should we even have it, but I decided, you know, look this many young people here. Something positive needs to be said about the Lord. So the police stayed, they were everywhere, and we finally were able to have this funeral. And that's when things kind of like I made a commitment to God.
Look, I'm all in.
I thought I had been all in, but something has to be done about the violence in this name.
To say about a society that has to have a massive police presence or a child can be buried, Man, it's very sad. It's nothing like it.
I mean.
Broken.
I can remember thinking and even while the worship service was going on, it's going to take a miracle to change this neighborhood. And I was thinking, even why the funeral's going on, Man, I should just lead this neighborhood.
Why am I here? I shouldn't.
Yeah, I started to doubt, and I started I was really internally wrestling about the whole situation. But at the end of that funeral, something happened that had never happened to me. Ever, I really believe that Lord still speaks and urges you by the Holy Spirit. I believe that, and I really believe that the Holy Spirit was just functioning me to say something to those boys who had brought illegal guns into the church. And so I said, at the end of the funeral, I stopped the process. I stopped everybody and told everybody to sit down, and I said, you know, I'm not trying to scare anybody. I'm not trying to be spooky. I'm not trying to be prophetic. But I do believe when God speaks to me, gives me a certain function. And I said, there's some young brothers in here who brought guns in here illegally. And this is what I said, God wants you to turn those guns in today, because if you diss Him by going out these doors with those guns, He's gonna diss you. So I'm gonna say a prayer, and at the end of this prayer, we're gonna have a gun turn in. And I got the police to agree that I could do it. They wouldn't rest anybody. We could do a gun turn in and I said a prayer, and I thought it was gonna be I don't know if you're familiar with Billy Graham, but I thought it was gonna be like one of them Billy Graham crusades, you know what he prays, and then everybody comes down and everybody's crying. Everybody's so I thought it was gonna be like that. But I said amen, and it was so quiet, nobody moved. I thought, oh my god, I made a big mistake. And then all of a sudden, after about a minute of quiet, this young brother with a T shirt on, saggy pants locks, pulls up his pants. He's got a nine milimeter clock, holds it up in the air, turns it in. Another person turns in the gun. Another person turns in the gun, and I said, God that this is a miracle. Whatever you want me to do from this point, I'm all in. So as we're walking out at the end of the funeral, the sergeant of police stops me and she's crying and she says, passor thank you so much. She said, underneath the seat, we found this gun and it was another nine milimeter but it had an extended clip and so I just recommitted again the same thing I just committed.
God, I'm all in whatever I got to do this violence, I'm all in.
And little did I know I would walk from the back of our church to the front door of our church and they're that motel is the first thing I put my eyes on, and the same unction I had in the funeral, I got that same unction again. This time it was more like, go on top of the roof for that motel and stay there until you raise enough money to purchase it and tear it down and start building a community center.
Okay, so now we're gonna get to this part of the story, which is phenomenal.
But brother, are you crazy? Because here I think I was, because I think you gotta have a little crazy. How you gonna go up on a roof and buy a hotel? I mean, here's the truth. You go on the roof of this building right now. But that don't mean you're gonna buy nothing. Which is is are you gonna find enough quarters on the room you're gonna be able to buy?
How are you gonna buy a hotel by going on the roof. That doesn't even make sense. It doesn't make any sense.
At all, and I tell people I know it now looking back, it made no sense and I didn't even think it. I wasn't even thinking it through. I just really believed in my heart and mind I'm hearing from God. I was believing that because I was in that gun turned in kind of like just messing me up and have me. Man, you got brothers turning in guns. I'll believe it.
We'll be right back. One of the reasons why at the beginning of our conversation, I really wanted to establish your pedigree, your educational pedigree political science and Dallas and got into law school. I'll tell you another quick story. I've done more stories on this. The Rain Hotel over here on Mulberry Streets where Martin Luther King was shot and killed in Memphis. And Memphis was a major manufacturing area prior to nineteen April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, and there were riots and riots and riots, and a lot of companies Caterpillar International Harvester, Firestone, Firestone had a plant over here that was seven hundred acres, couldn't deal with it and pulled up stakes. And it's set back this city thirty years, not only culturally and racially, but economical Memphis is still dealing with it. I mean, Memphis at one time was one of the top ten largest cities in the country. And the crossing of the river, I mean the Memphis has struggled and it's coming back. And there are great corporations still here, like International Paper and AutoZone and FedEx and others. But that incident, and I don't need to mean to downplay the social impact of that incident, which is most important, but it had a devastating economic impact on the city. As a result, the area around the Roman Hotel went to hell, right, And so in eighty seven, nineteen eighty seven, I'm at Olmsson College, mine of my own business. Well not really, but that's where I am, and this TV the news comes over, and the city and county and a private public partnership of raised enough money to buy their own hotel, do millions of dollars with the renovations and make it the National Civil Rights Museum and honor doctor King and make it a museum that's DC New York quality, which stands today. Great, great deal. But the woman who was running that motel's name was Jacqueline Smith, not the Charlie's Angel Jacqueline Smith, an African American woman named Jackie Smith who was using the hotel to house beaten, battered, abused children and mothers and people are on the streets caring for the very people that your heart cares. And her argument was, museums and monuments don't perpetuate the memory of doctor King actions to and if we're going to spend twenty five million dollars on this place, why don't we rehabit to a center for the people that need it the most. Well, nobody understood that all the news showed was this black woman having all her stuff thrown on the curb and being dragged out by her feet and hands down the stairway, hollering loud. And you know what she looked like. She looked like a crazy street woman, right, crazy black woman, angry black woman, crazy angry black woman, just raising hell. And then they drop her on the curb with all her stuff and put a tarp over it. It's twenty twenty four and that woman is still there, Wow, tonight because she believes so desperately in her heart that actions, not monuments, better support and perpetuate the memory the works of a man like doctor King. Now you can argue whether or not the Civil Rights Museum as an educational tool and as a monument to the greatest civil rights leader of our time is appropriate or not. I personally think it probably is, But I also understand her. So I drove up there, and now this was not a place in the city that many folks went, and certainly not redheaded, fat white dudes, right, And I ended up spending two nights on the sidewalk with her, and Wow, heard her story, wrote it down, and wrote an article that ended up getting published and like readers, dijust and time and all that. So it was my first full way into storytelling, frankly. But what I learned about Jackie Smith is she had a degree from the University of Southern Mississippi and was a lead soprano in the Chicago metch Boldern Opera at one time, and she left all that to come back home to serve the most disadvantaged in community. And her protest was righteous. I'm telling the story for this reason. When I first heard the story of a black man camping out on somebody's roof in Chicago, I thought you were just a crazy, angry.
Black man yeah, you know, and I can understand that, and I think that's not just was your thought. I think that's probably what a lot of people thought. Even people on my staff thought. Passed, this is crazy, don't you know. They were trying to talk to me out of doing it. But I was so convinced and still am to this day that that's what God wanted me to do that I was not gonna No one.
Could have changed my mind. Tell us what you did.
So on November the twentieth, twenty eleven, about four am in the morning, Rafa, who is our church maintenance engineer, we snuck up on the roof and we put a tent up there and I just refused to come down, and I said I wasn't gonna come down until we raised enough money.
How tall is this fielding?
It's about three stories, So your three stories up there, three stories up in the air.
People lobbing your cans of beans? How you eating?
And so at first I was fast, and so so I was on the twenty one day fast because I was thinking this is what I really just think. I was like, Okay, I go up here on this roof and people are here about it. It's crazy. Black preacher on the roof attend not eating seven days, I'll be down. I really thought that's what's going to happen, but it did not happen like that. I'm thankful to a lady by the name of Hermeane Hartman, who was really close to Reverend Jesse Jackson, and she's you know, she's really historic in Chicago as far as media is concerned, on black radio, and she knows everybody. She just happened to hear that I was on the roof, and she did not believe it. And so she came by there on the second day in her car, her and her friend, and she was hollering up and so I come over to the side of the roof.
She said, I didn't I did not believe you were up here.
I'm gonna go and tell everybody, And sure enough she started, Yeah, she started spreading the word. I started getting attention. The mayor called and we got into a big argument. Man, Rommy Manuel on the third.
Supposed to be a big progressive Democrats support the people kind of guy.
Yeah, I tell people, I didn't know he could cuss. I didn't know you could cuss preachers out like that.
He cussed me.
Out real good cause you know, he's like, I'm gonna get after off and have people on the roofs all across the city if he allows it to go.
And that, yeah, he was gonna start. I'm starting something, starting something everybody gonna do. And I control off the roof off and you told the mayor, no way, you have to come and get me. Let me buy this hotel exactly, And he was.
Like, I can't help you buy the motel, and you're gonna come off that roof. Matter of fact, if you don't come off by three o'clock, we're gonna come and get you. And I tell everyone he should have he made a big mistake. He told me the time. When he told me the time, I called every gang banger.
I knew every grandmother, everybody, the whole the block was packed.
It was so many people that the police and the fire department couldn't come up to get me off the roof. What it looked like the press was there. The press was there. So he called back and he's like, okay, okay, I'm gonna let you stay on the roof, but you gotta let us inspect it and make sure it's safe. So by that time, we had got a lift, that rented a lift, so they come all the way up there. So the fire chief gets on and here the fire and the chief of the fire department in Chicago coming up on the roof. So he comes up there and he's he's really laughing because he knows that, you know, he's laughing about rom them trying to make me get off. So he's like, listen, man, I just do this, do this. And all the things he told me to do were safety things. And I'm glad he did because on the third day, once we got everything up, that night a snow It was the only snowstorm that hit while I was up there. This is the winter, yes, November, the twentieth.
Wind's blowing. Yet Wins.
The wind is blowing, I'm freezing. I'm really not prepared for a snowstorm.
And I was like, oh my god.
But when that snowstorm hit, we had sealed the inside of the tent down with two by fours and drilled it to the roof so it wouldn't blow away. And so I was glad. He's going crazy. The bank's going crazy. So we're fighting with the bank. We're fighting with them, but they couldn't. They couldn't get me off because the neighborhood by that time, they were like in full support, and it was like it had become a thing of man pasting bricks is on the roof. We're gonna so everybody so the games. Instead of being mad, they started protecting me, and it was it was amazing. It was an amazing sight to behold. And it lasted ninety four days. That's over three months. Yes, I thought it was gonna they come down for Christmas.
Nothing. I came down. The only time I came on Sunday, I preached and they streamed it in.
So before all the streaming and stuff was going on, we had already figured out streaming. So they would they would put me on the roof. I was passing from the roof. I would preach a sermon from the roof and they'd be in there.
It was about this, what about using the bathroom?
So you know, I'm a country boy, so I knew it ain't got my I don't remember a lot about my childhood, but I do remember being six and seven and we had an outhouse in Kenton, Tennessee, So going and using it outside was no big deal to me. So we I got this camping little thing it's used for camping that you use it to a porter pot with powder. Yeah, the powder, and you bought like a little it's like a little trash bag. You use it and in the pot. You tied it up and throw it out. So by that time I was did you have I was I was a ported pot expert.
Did you have any electricity?
We we finally got some electricity up there, because after that third day I almost froze to death. I was like, I'm not going to be able to make it. So we we hijacked the electricity from across the street at the church, wired it all the way across the electric poles without the city knowing. Yeah, we we We used some some ghetto tricks and.
We So, man, just sitting across from you, you got.
This warm smile and this warm presence, right, yeah, I appreciate it.
I gotta believe though you were tight lift and you weren't showing that warmth from the top of that roof.
No, no, no, you know I have a warm side the form the nice, fuzzy, cuddly warm side, but I also have that side that you know, I'm an edgy, and I think I have to be that way because I don't think you can passor in our neighborhood without without being a man's man.
I don't know how you're a Peter Disciple.
Yeah, yeah, definitely, that would be me. I'm always learning to turn the other cheek, and you know, I'm always learning how to be humble. But the guys laugh a lot with me because you know, I've gotten into some major confrontations with guys who from the neighborhood. So but I try to be as golly and as golly example as I can.
But I'm just not gonna let you bully me. So you up there for ninety three days, and at this point, I don't know how that's going to help you to buy the building. It may bring attention to the flight.
So I was bringing it. So I tell people I'm on this roof for two reasons. One to bring attention and awareness to the violence in the Woodline, Chicago area that is out of hand.
It's too much.
No one should have to deal with as much violence in any neighborhood. Children should be able to walk to the store without being shot. They should be able to go to the playgrounds, and play without being shot at. They should be able to go to school safely. So that's I was trying to bring as much attention to that I could to the to the violence. And that's what I did. And so even while I was on the roof. The one time I did come down, it was for a young boy who had gotten shot at a Lee's Chicken and New York Times came and did a story on it. But that was the only time I came down to do that funeral of that young boy. But I was committed toward, you know, toward that effort and bringing attention and awareness. And then number two, I would tell people, well, I'm raising money to purchase this motel to turn into a community center. Now, I'll be honest, I think one of the reasons why it took so long. I think one of the reasons why it took so long is that in our community, people are used to preachers saying they're going to build something and do something, and sometimes we don't do it. So I think I had I had that uphill struggle to deal with and getting the message out to convince people that hey, I'm serious, I'm going to do it. But I think over time. Once people saw man, this man must be serious because he's not coming down. It's Christmas, it's Martin Luther King's birthday, it's Groundhog Day, it's Valentine.
True, your wife get pretty angry at some point.
You know what, It got tired of you being on the Only thing my wife got mad about is I kept begging her to come up there.
You know, got you go past her roof pical business.
She wouldn't cooperate. She used to tell me. She used to tell me, I don't want to come up there. People are gonna think we're doing it. And I'm like, that's because we're gonna be If you come up here, let me show you my let me show you the r ruth.
To believe that you come up here, Lord, expect to go that way. We'll be right back.
I kept a diary and I wrote every day in the diary. On day ninety two, I wrote about God, I'm really expecting you to do something soon. I just feel it, And I said, I just want to thank you right now for what I believe you're going to do. I know you're going to do it, so thank you in advance. That was day ninety two. On day ninety four, I got a bunch of calls. People calling me and said they're talking about you on the radio. They're trying to get in touch with you my phone. It was so many calls. I'd never experienced this that my cell phone got locked because so many people were trying to call me. And so finally Tyler Perry got through. Cayler p Yeah. On the ninety fourth day, Tyler Perry and Tom Joyner. He was on the Tom Joyner Morning Show and somebody had told him about what I was doing, and he called me and they had me live on the radio and he said, is this the crazy Black Preacher on the roof in Chicago? And I was like, yes, it is. And he was like, hey, this is Tyler Perry. And I got a movie coming out called Good Deeds. He said, I want to give you the motorcycle from the movie be Good Deeds. And I was like, oh, man, thank you, but I'm thinking in my mind, man, I need more than a motorcycle. I'm trying to get off this roof. But I didn't want to say that on the lote. Yeah, thank you for the motorcycle, but you know, so he goes on he said I got this movie coming out called Good Deeds. I want you to attend it, I said, miss spiriy I. Man, I really would love to attend the movie, I said, but I can't because, yeah, unless I have the money to come down off the roof, you know. So I'm going into it now. Unless I have the money to come down off the roof, I can't. And then he's like, well, how much more do you need. I was like, we need one hundred thousand dollars, and he's like, I'm going to give it to you. Come on down, I said, missus Perry, I would come down, but I made a vow to God. I couldn't come down till we have it all in our possessions. So so they started laughing. He said, okay, my people gonna talk to your people. There's gonna be done by two o'clock. This is early in the morning. Sure enough, by two o'clock they had transfer the funds. I had learned a little bit about pr and all that stuff, and I knew that we're gonna need the momentum to build the center. So even though we had the money at two o'clock, I said, We're gonna wait until five o'clock, so we catch the five o'clock news and six o'clock news and all of that, and it'll make a big deal.
Out of it.
And we had the streets packed and the neighborhood was packed, and it was a real big thing. And so that's how I got off through Tyler Perrygate the last one hundred thousand dollars and then.
Our total of five hundred and something.
Yeah, five, that made us have four hundred and fifty thousand, and then that's what the building costs. And then we had a gentleman by the name of Marty Ozinga from Ozinga Concrete that came. He came up there probably around about three o'clock, wanted to see me his Ozinga Concrete. There's like four generations of Thoozinga's the Osinger Concrete company. And Marty came on top of the roof. He said, hey, he hadn't heard about Tom Jonner. You know, they don't listen to Tom Joinner. So he says, me and my brothers, we want to give you something. And it was one hundred thousand dollars. And I was like, Marty, thank you so much, I said, But in all honestly, I cannot take this because Tyler period gave us all the money that we needed, and so I have the money to purchase the building. And then he said, well, well, I don't want to take it back. I want to we want to give it to you. He said, well, how much money you got to tear it down? Right, He's got to tear this building down. I said yeah. He said, well how much is it going to cost to tear it down? I said probably about one hundred thousand. So he gave thousand This just so happens, one hundred thousand dollars and so he gave us the money and that's how we tore it down. Then we started our journey to you know, we want to turn this into a community center.
And that was a long, long journey. That is a phenology. One of the things we talk about all the time is when our discipline and our passion meet opportunities, when I'm amazing, things can happen. I believe you're passionate about this neighborhood. You had the discipline to bring notoriety to it. You saw an opportunity and for ninety four days, yeah, you filled it. So you got the thing down right.
Yep, that's two thousand. So in twenty twelve the building came down. It's just vacant land, and so we put some basketball courts up there. We drew up some plans the type of center that we wanted to have. We created an organization called Project Hood while I was on the roof. Project Hood stands for helping others attain destiny. And we started looking at all the issues that we needed to deal with to get rid of the poverty and the violence in the neighborhood. And so that was in twenty twelve, and so the land was there. We put some basketball courts on it. We used it as a place where kids could play. We beautified it, make it look nice, made it look nice, but we didn't have at that time. It started off being a twenty million dollar building.
Then you wanted to be that. We wanted to build communities, a community center. Now is this a community center for the church or like a private community center for the just the community.
Yes, it's a community center for the community. It's a place where we teach where we're going to be teaching the trades. We have a culinary art school, construction, automotive, electrical, plumbing. We have a theater, two gyms, a golf simulator, an Olympic sized swimming pool, three restaurants.
This is all on the plant, This is all in the plans. What I like though, is it's a place for kids to come and everything else. But it's also a place people can learn the hard skills. Yes, it's a place to learn skills.
It's about it's a place about for transformation for young people. It's about them having safe spaces and places to go because in our community, unfortunately, so many times young people just didn't don't have safe places. The YMCA is about a mile and a half and kids in our neighborhood they can't There's no way possible they can walk to that YMCA because they have to walk out across so many gang turns to do it.
So I didn't understand that. I bet you know. R Shae Cooper. Yes, Archae was a guest and he said from He's also from not this neighborhood, but that side of the city, south side right, I mean west side, right, So he said. One of his dreams as an eight year old, he could see the top of Sears Tower from the top of his apartment building. And one of his big dreams was just to go one day be able to see the serious town. And that means one of the kid's biggest dreams was just to be able to drive ten miles across his city. Yes, or ride on a bus. Yes. And I said, well, why didn't you just go there and see it? He said, I'd have been killed, yep, because I had to cross four or five or six different neighborhoods with different gangs, and I had never there and back. You never ventured off your block never. You know.
There's a guy who's a kid, who he lives with us. His name is Da Marius. He's my son's best friend. And I can remember when he was sixteen years old. I was taking all of them to open up an account at Chase Bank, and the Marius Chase Bank from our church, from their neighborhood is exactly nine blocks away. It's on We're on Keen Drive there on Stony Island, and I can remember as we're going across like four or five blocks, he's looking around. I'm like, I notice he's kind of anxious, nervous, and I find it's like, what's going on?
What's wrong? All right? He's like, I have never been over here. I was, like, never been over with five blocks? He said, my mom would not allow us to cross Vernon. Vernon is only two blocks. And I thought, man, this is crazy showing people say I don't get it about these people. Yeah, quote these people. We got free education. You go, get you a breakfast and a lunch, you can study up and learn. We give away food stamps, government assistant housing. I mean, as a country, we literally provide free education, free meals, all of this stuff. All people got to do is take advantage of the opportunities, pull themselves up by their bootstraps and go to work. How are you ever going to grow as a child when you can't even go beyond two blocks? And what does it say about a part of our culture. They're not dreaming to be doctors, they're not dreaming to be accountants, they're not dreaming to go to college. Their dream is to be able to go eight miles to downtown Chicago to see a tower. Yeah. If that is the apex of your ability to dream, what are you ever going to achieve? Yeah? Exactly.
And you know, the lack of exposure with a lot of the kids in Chicago is tremendous. You know, people would be really amazed that there are young people in Chicago who have never ever been downtown. They would be amazed that there are kids who never seen, never been to the beach at Lake Michigan. And that's you know, a mile away, a straight shot. It's not like they have to go zipping around corners a straight shot and they've never been to the lake.
Because they're too afraid to walk outside. Absolutely, Now, how you're gonna learn, how you gonna dream, how you gonna achieve, how you gonna be anything? Yeah? Absolutely. You know.
One day, I remember, probably about a year and a half ago, it was some gunshots that rang out near the school ground and all the kids new to hit the ground. They taught they teach the kids shooting drills on how to hit the ground on the playground. And when you're in environments like that where kids don't feel safe, they don't want to go outside their environments, it's hard to get them exposed. It's hard to get them to dream, it's hard to get them to think that they can be something. It's hard to think get them to believe that they can achieve anything that they you know that people tell them they can achieve. It's just it's just a hard, hard sell.
We have all kinds of organizations that are dealing with are greater and greater understanding over the last decade and a half about our service people coming back around the rock wherever they serve, in their PTSD and the trauma and the anxiousness and the triggers associated with violence. They're involved in defending our country and for a living. When our children know more about how to respond to gunfire than they do about curious George, what is the trauma in their lives? What is their PTSD? And how do you expect those people to learn? Second point is man, the first time I ever heard the term white privilege, it pissed me. Also bad Cory. It made me so angry. My mama did her best, but we didn't have much of nothing. I went to school on a scholarship. I worked three jobs, and you know it wasn't no white privilege. I worked hard, and I'm gonna tell you something. I've got a nice business and all, but to this day I owe the bank a bunch of money. And if I don't make my notes, they're coming to get my house. In my wife's car and it's a lot of stress. But I can tell you this, I wasn't dreaming about walking across the block. That was no big deal. And the truth is, despite how hard I've worked to do everything else, by comparison, the kids are growing up in the neighborhood you're serving, I was quite privileged, and you've got to understand, white privilege is not a knock on white people who've done well. It's just trying to open eyes to there's a segment of our urban populations that is largely African American that children don't even have the chance to go to blocks from their homes safely. And the fact that I never experienced that is a privilege That does not mean it makes me bad or discredits any of the hard work I've put in. In fact, most people celebrate it, and that's great, but we also have to remove ourselves and our ego from that and try to start understanding the desperation these children are growing up in.
Yeah, you know, I may not agree with the term white privilege, but I'll say this that I think all of us have different situations and circumstances that make us privileged. Even I would call myself when as it relates to those kids, I was privileged. I wasn't in an environment even though I was my stepfather was abusive and crazy and deranged. I wasn't in an environment where I couldn't walk to school. I can remember walking to school safely. I can remember going to the playground, not having to worry about was gunfire going to break out. I can remember having friends, not having to worry about was another gang gonna jump us and we're gonna get a fight. Those were environments shot and killed as as a kid, just one one. Yeah, the kids you're pastoring, according to what you just told me, they've all had at least twenty five exactly. My son, my youngest son, Kobe, deals with a lot of trauma, and at first it was hard for me to understand, but then I realized how many friends he had that were actually shot and killed or in prison because we never sheltered them from the neighborhood we grew up. They grew up in the neighborhood. Those kids, their their friends, their brothers, their sisters, and so he's had to deal with a lot of traumatic experiences. You know, of people that he's been close with to be shot and killed, and I really didn't understand it at first, but when I started looking at it, I'm like, man, he's even though he has a mother and a father that love him and siblings, he still has a traumatic experience because he's in this environment with all these young people who have been killed.
Did you ever worry about him getting brought into the life by his friends that mak good. You had to keep them close?
Oh, for sure, you know, we definitely, we definitely had to keep an eye on. Are the two youngest ones, my daughter Danielle and Kobe. They were our hardest cases. But thankfully they're turning out to be some great kids. But Kobe definitely, you know, because those boys, the group that he was with that was that's a tough little group rounders. Huh yeah, definitely a tough little group.
We'll be right back. So you're not just being nice to build to try to build this community center. It's a need. It erases some of the lack of privilege. You can go across the street, you can get exposed to trades, you can get exposed to ideas. This thing is is a way for children to eradicate themselves with the trauma of what is their daily lives in your church's block. Absolutely block is called Oh Block.
And the reason why it's called Old Block is because it's named after a young man named Ode Perry who was shot and killed and the games picked up the O in his name and they started calling it Oh Block. If you Google it or up, you know it's gonna talk about. Old Block is mentioned in all kinds of rap lyrics, all kinds of things is being said about Old Block. Well, we decided, you know, okay, cool, We're gonna keep the O, but we're gonna turn into Opportunity Block.
We're gonna, we're gonna, we're.
Gonna transform it, and we're gonna take this and make it a place where people's lives can be totally changed and not are destroyed. And so this center is a beacon of hope of what can be done when you work hard to transform a community, not just so you can have a big community center, but when you work hard to transform something to help change people's lives. And so that's what it's really all about. So we're we're really adamant about how it looks, We're adamant about the excellence that it's going to have. We're adamant about the programs that it's going to have because we wanted to be a model for what can be done, even in places like Memphis where they're having situations with gangs. You know, they just had some big murders here two hundred and fifty four last year exactly, So we need to be in places like Memphis showing a different way Saint Louis, New Orleans. So we're creating a model for something that we know works and we can change oh block, we can change any block in America. And you've been thinking about this since you tore that building in twenty twelve every single day. So now you're on a twelve year mission and you hadn't broke ground yet.
Yeah, so no, we broke ground so.
Oh yeah recently there, Yeah, we recently broke ground.
So how much money does this thing cost?
So now it's up to thirty eight million dollars thirty eight thirty eight road.
You had to stay on a roof for ninety three days to get four fifty and Tyler Perio to bail you out. How you gonna get thirty eight million?
So a the tenth year anniversary of when I was on Ruth. The first time my son and Brian came to me. They were like, listen, either you got to build this center or you got to change your vision. Because you've been talking about this center for ten years. What are you gonna do? So I said, okay, you got much did you have? That's what I asked him. I said, go and see, you know, look and see what we got what we can work with. They came back, they said, man, we don't have any money. We got zero to work with. Yeah, we got zero to work with. And so I said, okay, I'm going to pray and figure it out. And so I came back to him and said, I want to get eight train containers.
I want to put them together.
I'm going to build a deck on that property, on the train containers, and I'm going to go up there and stay and raise the money. And everybody was like, oh no, not again this. We don't want to go through this ordeal. It is not gonna work. You've already done that. Some of the people on my board. One of my one of my mentors, Patrick Milligan, this old Irish guy, he's about seventy seven. He's like, oh, you already did that. Let's not do that again. So everybody was against it not but again I just felt that unction that I think this is gonna work, and I think the Lord is gonna gonna do it. So I went up there on the roof again, and this time I thought, okay.
At least do it in the summer.
This time, well part of the summer. But I went up on the November the twentieth again, on the exact anniversary date, and I thought, Okay, this time, maybe it'll take one hundred days, because you know, we raised five hundred and fifty in ninety four days, and so I think we can raise enough money in one hundred days. Back then, we didn't have any of the social media stuff, or we didn't have any of the now yeah, we got social media, we got a little movement people know about us. Twenty twenty two, this would have been so yeah, this would have been twenty twenty one. So I thought one hundred days at least, And so I committed to hundred days.
And you think you're gonna weigh thirty something million dollars an under that, Yeah, I'm thinking I'm gonna raise this twenty five because at that time they become twenty five million dollars.
That's how much it was gonna cost. So it went from twenty million to twenty five million because we changed some stuff in prices had gone up. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna raise this money. I just believed it. I didn't know how.
I just believed it.
And so we started getting the word out and people started giving, and somewhere around.
Like day.
Sixty five, Fox called me and asked me, hey, can you do a story about what's going on in Chicago from the rooftop? And I was like sure. Now, I said, like, what's the parameters? So they said here and here are the parameters. You can do the story anyway you want to do it. We won't edit it, just stay within our parameters. And I was like okay. So I did the story and it ended up being one of their top stories on their website and they were I think they were little surprise too. I didn't tell them, but it was also the top money day as far as people donating to our costs.
And so they called me again.
They said, hey, that story, what was was really good and really well, can you do another one? And I was like sure, So I did another one, and again we had a great response, and so then they came back, they said, hey, why don't you do something until you come down. I was like every day, every day, and so they let.
Me do this.
That's they're giving you a national commercial. It was that about five minutes. It's about I wrote a story.
Five minutes of national airs.
I wrote a story for every every everything. We called them rooftop revelations, and so so I wrote a story and I would tackle issues that people were concerned about around America.
We were talking.
We wouldn't just talk about the violence in Chicago, but we would talking about just a lot of views that that people were concerned and race, school choice, You kept music, yes, woke uh DEI everything I talked about it, Yes, And people loved it and responded well. And as a consequence, I ended up being on the roof for three hundred and forty three days a year, yes, almost.
A year, and didn't come down.
The only time I came down was for my mom's funeral. My mom's funeral.
And you your mind, bro, Yeah yeah? Vote After that, did you still have the extension cord and everything?
I did it at this time, I had it right though we had the extension cord still and we set up three tenths. This time, we sat, we had my tent. Then we had a guest tent where we invited CEOs from around the country and people would influence to stay all night and people would come and stay all night. And then we had a middle that we called the Ten of Meeting and Ten of Prayer that we would have meetings and things like that.
So we had figured it.
We kind of figured it out a little bit, and we really used social media. Fox was so gracious to let us, you know, do the platform, the stories on their platform. We went from about having one hundred national donors to having over twenty one thousand new donors from across America, and we raised about twenty five million dollars. After it was all said and done, we had two really big gifts from a one eight million dollar gift from a foundation and another five million dollar gift from Ken Griffin who moved from Chicago to Miami. Ken Griffin from Citadel. That movie if you ever seen the movie Dumb Money, where that Yeah, that Ken Griffin is one of the financial guys in that movie. Yeah, So he gave us five million dollars and then all the rest of it from all over the place.
Yeah. Yeah, and now across the country, a twelve year vision and you have broken ground. We've broken ground. The building is being built.
If you go to our website projectthood dot org, you can see a wonderful facility being built there.
Now.
This week we reached the milestone because they're pouring concrete on the second floor now. So the second floor is being poured and it's an exciting time in our neighborhood the building because it's taking it so long. The cost is now thirty eight million dollars. We raised thirty one million dollars, so our goal is to raise another ten million so we can pay for We want to pay for debt free, so we don't have debt, and we want to make sure that we have some some money in our endowment so that something ever happens to me or that the center can go on and continue to do all the wonderful programs, because that's what's really important.
I mean, this, this thing's the money you're talking about. Besides, you're talking about the sin's got to be able to survey a.
Lot of people, yes, a lot of people, and we're not charging for memberships, so We're not like the YMCA where they charge you for a membership, or we're not charging like a school that charges you to take the construction classes. We just recently, you know, the need is so great in our neighborhood that we have these cohorts construction cohorts where we teach construction. And our cohort's getting ready to come up this month. There's only thirty slots. Thirty people can get in. We had a three hundred and sixty sign up, but only thirty can get in. But when we open the center, we'll be able to take on hundreds. So we're really excited about that.
We'll be right back. I'm so encouraged to hear you talk about carpentry courses and all of that, you know, learning the skills like we talked about. I just want to kind of go down a list of stuff I've read and then just have you comment on this thing. Because Project Hood is phenomenal. You've got Chicago Adventure Therapy, which I love that especially for kids who are afraid to go more than two blocks from their house. Re Entry services to prevent recidivism, which is huge because I imagine a lot of people returning to your neighborhood are returning from prison and trying to get it right. And we know that if we don't have intervention for returning citizens from prison, that eighty five percent of them will be back in jail within three years. Absolutely, so you're working on cutting that off. For project hood, You've got entrepreneurship courses, you've got coworking, office space, camp refuge, you've got the world's largest baby shower hoops, You've got violence predict prevention.
Yes, I mean this is more than a Saint No YMCA. No, it's not an YMCA. We tell people it's more like a YMCA church trade school on steroids all mixed together.
Talk about a few of those things that project to it is I love the Chicago Adventure therapy after hearing what the kids and then maybe the re entry.
Proctice us about the Chicago Adventures is about when we discovered that kids were not being exposed even to the city of Chicago. We start taking excursions, taking trips downtown so they can see certain sites, taking trips to museums, taking them to the beach, taking them to sporting activities. We even take them camping, which is phenomenal. You know, we're even now trying to find land where we'll take kids camping.
I'm thinking about har Shane Cooper. He told me the first time they put him in a boat. Right, this is a kid, right, I've never been swimming. Yeah, that he had a gang banging one of the toughest guys he knows, sitting behind him on a lake right and right off Lake Michigan. But just like one of them those downtown before they ever put a powder on the water, was crying like a baby, scared to death. I believe swim. Never been in a boat. You can go back. And I'm not even gonna say it, but what Arche said about his friends talking about black folks in a boat, you could imagine a lot of kids don't know how to swim.
That's one of the reasons why we're that's that's a big, big reason why we haven't a limp about.
Taking kids from the hood and putting in a tent in the woods. Oh yeah, you know that's.
There was one of the kids we took them camping. Brian was with this group and he said they were trying to get this kid to go to sleep in the tent, but he wanted to stay outside, and they kept asking.
What what's the big deal?
Yea, And all he kept doing was looking up in the stars and he said he had never seen so many stars in all of his life, and he was just amazed to see the stars. So taking these kids camping, exposing them is really important because they get to see a lot of things that they don't get to see. Even now, we're planning our first trip out of the country. We're trying to take thirty kids off the block. It's called oh Block goes off the Block, and we're trying to take them to Africa. So we're gonna, yeah, we're gonna.
Take them to you.
I think it's Uganda and South Africa, and our goal is for them to it's either Zambia or South Africa or I can't even remember which one is near South Africa. Unfortunately I'm not good in geography. But we're going to We're going to those two countries in Africa and taking those kids, and we're gonna take some adults with us. But the goal is to expose them that Listen, I know you're on old block and you're in a tough area, but we're going to show you there's some tougher areas and some areas in the world where people are really poor and to poverished and impoverished, and we're going to teach them how to serve people who are in a worse off condition than them. And so we're really hoping that that's going to turn into an annual trip to take kids. So that's what that's what the Chicago Adventure is all about.
What about the returning Yes.
So we have a big recidivism program. It's going to be it's featured on the news in Chicago coming up in the next week or so. But we get brothers and sisters who are coming back home from prison and we try to make sure we remove every obstacle that would keep them from that would keep them from going back. So we help them deal with the trauma of family counseling, we help them find jobs, we help them do training, we help them get housing, IDs, licensing, anything that would make sure that we help them stay on the track.
Learned is huge. Yeah, after doing this show now our year and talking to a lot of people that work in that space, just getting an idea of license the BA basics just and you like, what's the big deal? Well, if you ain't got tramp station and you don't have forty five dollars and you don't know how to do it. Yeah, and you're intimidated by the system. That's it.
You're intimidated having to go and wait in the line and never have done that before and not really knowing about the test. That's it's challenging. So we help prepare them to face those challenges so they can make sure that they get back on track. So that's one of our better programs. And then our violence prevention program is made up of which is our top program to stop violence. In our neighborhood in Chicago, violence was going up and we were featured on CBS because we had fifty two reducts fifty two percent reduction in violence in what they call the worst neighborhood in the city, and that was because of our violence prevention program. We have fourteen full time employees all made up of the different gangs in our neighborhood, where we teach them about conflict resolution, We send them to trauma counseling, We get them to recruit for us for our construction classes for our other programs, and their goal is to mediate conflicts and so those individuals help us to curb violence a big deal in our neighborhood. And then they help to oversee forty part time workers from the different gangs who are part of our BOLEESCE prevention team as well. So those programs are some of the things that are helping us to make a major transformation of the neighborhood.
Yeah, this community center ain't basketball courts and a few bouncers hand them with no sir, no sir. Now, this is a revitalization of entire neighborhood project based around the community center type model.
Right, we call it a leadership and economic opportunity center.
It's phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah, you're not only shepherding and pastoring to this community. You are now literally providing work force training. Yes, financial literacy.
Yes, we have a bank right now in our church lobby, win Trust Bank. They're going to be in the center, but they decided, which is unheard of, hey let's get a jump start and can we have a portion of your lobby. So they came and put a bank, Southside Community Bank in our lobby until we get the center open. So we have a full full bank with tellers and everything.
You're turning this neighborhood on tire exactly. That's what that's the goal. You know.
When Chicago sometimes wrote that article on twenty fourteen, the most dangerous block in all the Chicago everything in me from Dallas came up, you know, and I can remember being that missions week. I can remember them talking about, if a church is in a neighborhood and a neighbor and it's not making any difference in the neighborhood, what are you there for. I can remember them talking about, if you have a church in a neighborhood and your church has moved out of the neighborhood, would they know that you were ever there? And that article and the fact that our church was there made me say, listen, we have got to transform this neighborhood. And we need to do it not just for the kids on this block who are suffering and struggling and the adults who've been living in this community, but we need to do it for American cities across the country who are dealing with the same issues that we're dealing with every single day. Because if we can prove that this model works, then we can go to other neighborhoods. And that's really the ultimate goal to show them that, look, we changed the toughest block in the country. We can take this and change any block, any city if we have the resources and the manpower and the passion to do it.
I believe that with all my heart. A dude from Union City learned how to go to the bathroom in an outhouse. Real foot Lake, realt Lake really calls by the earthquake, yeah eighteen something, or the Mississippi River flowed backwards two days and created the lake you grew up on. That's right to Dallas to Chicago, left started and you've turned a roller skate rink and a drugged out gang bamed prostitution pimped trafficking house into a church in a community so all to turn the worst neighborhood, the most violent, dangerous neighborhood in our country, into an oasis of hope in the middle of a lot of despair.
Only God, That's all I can say. You know, a kid from ken Tennessee, Union City, Tennessee, growing up in Monthsy Indiana, I would have never, in my wildest imagination and dreams, thought that God would allow me to serve His purpose and his people to do such an awesome thing, and I realized, Man, I don't have enough sense to do it. I don't have enough wherewith y'all, I don't know enough people. And it's only through the grace of God that we've been able to accomplish what we're accomplishing. And I'm probably you know I have I have big faith, crazy faith, but I am probably the most amazed person out of all of it because I know what God is working with.
You know, I got one question for you. Sure do you think if your mama would have let you build a treehouse you'd ever got up on that road? I think you just didn't grow up with a treehouse.
With a treehouse, he's going to get all the rute that might be that might be no treehouses.
If somebody wants to support you, which I hope people hear this, I want to support you Project Hood, the church, the community center. How do they reach you?
So they can go to Project Hoood dot org, Projectthood dot org and they can learn about all the programs and everything that we're doing. Specifically the community center that we're building, or New Beginning's Church of Chicago, which is right across the street from where we're building the center, and that addresses sixty six twenty South King Drive, Chicago, Illinois, six oh six three seven And and I tell everybody this that if you really want to get in touch with me, call me on my cell phone three one two eight one three five two one one. You know, I found out a long time ago when people are trying to get in touch with you to give something to help you build a visit, they don't need to be going through secretaries and red tape. So anybody can call me at any time, and I'll be glad to answer. If I don't answer this, leave a message, I'll call you back.
As a matter of a fact, I have been reached out by a number of pastors who I know listen to the show. I've been emailed by three or four. I also give my personal contact information, and weekly I get a bunch of emails. So you understand how I do. And I'm the same. I'm glad you gave your phone number because my hope is some of these pastors hear you, and if their church is not on fire for the true calling of a Christian, maybe they might want to reach out to you and talk about how to get their church alne the way church is a line, because I think ultimately, just as in the past, the corporate church may have done its own worst enemy. If we follow your illustration of discipleship, I don't know how anybody wouldn't want to be involved in that.
Yeah, I would love for any pastors or any churches to reach out to me. I love the church. I love the church, for the church has helped me to become. I know I wouldn't be anywhere near the person I am if we're not for the church. So I love the church, and my hatred for pastors has grown to a deep love and passion for pastors. I love pastors, and I want to help as much as I possibly can. So anything I can do to help anybody anywhere, man, I want to do that. So they can call me anytime.
That'ster Corey Brooks, the founder of New Beginning's Church, the founder of Project Hood, who turns dilapidated skating rinks into sanctuaries and whorehouses into beacons of hope in the most dilapidated neighborhoods, and wants to export this idea to areas across our country. And all you have to do is email and we'll call him and I'll help you. And if you feel called to help him raise the last seven million dollars he needs to do the work he's doing, he will take your money. Corey, thanks for coming to him, for sharing your story. It has been my honor to meet you. It's been a blessing to meet you. Thank you so very much. I appreciate it, and thank you for joining us this week. Guys, if pastor Corey Brooks or any of our other guests has inspired you in general, or better yet, inspired you to take action by volunteering with Projecthood, by donating to them, by starting something like it in your own community, or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us, and I promise you I will respond. You can just ask Badger. And if you enjoyed this episode, share our friends and on social subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it, become a premium member at normalfolks dot us. All these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks. Don't forget, the more people, the more impact. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.