Oct 28, 2009 6:20 pm US/Central
South Side Center Provides Safe Haven For Students
The Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center Will Open In 2011; Programs For Kids, Adults Have Already Started
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Even though construction on the Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center doesn't begin until Spring 2010, the Salvation Army is wasting no time getting kids started in programs, like trombone class.
CBS
The Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center on the South Side will offer programs for adults as well as an array of education, sports and art programs for kids, all under one roof. As CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports, even though the Kroc Center won't open until 2011, the programs have already started.
Inside Higgins Community Academy in West Pullman, elementary students learn to play everything from horns to percussion instruments.
The children are taking part in programs offered through the Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center.
When Mrs. Kroc passed away in 2003, she gave the Salvation Army the largest gift ever received by a private charity: $1.6 billion.
Of that money, more than $108 million is being used to build the Kroc Center in West Pullman, at the corner of 119th and Loomis. People of all ages are welcome at the center.
Even though construction on the Kroc Center doesn't begin until next spring, the Salvation Army is wasting no time getting young people started in the programs.
"Before doing this, I never really thought about playing the trombone. I really didn't know what the Salvation Army did," said Tia Hammons, an 8th grader.
Higgins Community Academy and the future Kroc Center site are not far from Roseland, the place where
Fenger High School honor student Derrion Albert was beaten to death.
"I was thinking like, I can't believe he just got killed," said Pierce Cruz, an 8th grader. "I really don't know if I want to go to high school no more because I'm really scared about my life, and I just don't want to be killed or anything."
The 13-year-old said the programs offered by the Kroc Center have been life-changing.
"If we keep away from the streets, we can learn new things and know how to have manners, and just don't bully people," Cruz said.
"It's on the sports field. It's in the music classes. It's in the drama theatre, that we learn how to get along and use our gifts and respect our talents, and that's what changes the world," said Major David Harvey, Kroc Center Administrator. "This is an opportunity for them to choose between college and prison, and I'd rather have them have the opportunity to get to college."
Boys and girls are also learning about peer pressure and building self-esteem. Ariel Taylor, 12, takes part in the Sunbeams class.
"It taught me how to cook and it taught me how to swim, and I learned stuff about plants and I learned about safety," Taylor said.
Corps Sergeant-Major Vincent Johnson grew up in West Pullman.
"So many of our kids are in prison without even being in the Illinois Department of Corrections," Johnson said.
Johnson said as the Director of Evangelism and Outreach for the Kroc Center, he's giving back to his community.
"That same area where the Ray and Joan Kroc Center is about to be built was an area where I did my initial gang initiation there, where I sold drugs, where I wound up becoming addicted to heroin and crack," Johnson said. "But to know that life is coming there, my heart's just overjoyed."
Fifteen million of the $22.5 million in private donations needed to break ground for the center has been raised.
If you'd like to help the Kroc Center Endowment, write to:
The Give Hope Campaign
5040 N. Pulaski Road
Chicago, IL 60630-2788
Phone: (773) 205-3550
Or visit
http://www.kroccenterchicago.org/
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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