The Chicago Community Trust has announced that its We Rise Together: For an Equitable and Just Recovery initiative has awarded grants totaling more than $6.7 million in support of neighborhood anchor projects.

Supported by a coalition of individual, foundation, and corporate funders, We Rise Together aims to increase impact and leverage private capital, public-sector funds, and business resources to drive an equitable economic recovery by attracting additional investments and partners in Black and Latinx communities. To date, the initiative has secured more than $45 million in funding commitments.

The latest round of grants will fund seven community-focused projects to provide access to much-needed services as identified by residents, such as child care, recreation, and health care. Recipients include Brown Sugar Bakery (Ashburn), which will repurpose a candy factory to expand a locally owned business of color and offer additional retail services; Esperanza Health Center (West Lawn), which will open a new site to offer affordable, quality health care and living-wage jobs, as well as attract additional business activity; Little Angels Daycare (Englewood), a new facility that will increase the availability of high-quality day care for residents returning to the workforce; North Austin Community Center (Austin), a new recreational center that will offer educational and recreational activities and help increase economic activity; Ogden Commons (Lawndale), which will complete phase one of the mixed-use development to improve access to quality health care, community amenities, and quality jobs; Overton Center of Excellence (Bronzeville), which will use the grant to leverage additional funding to establish a creative hub accessible to the community that supports arts and technology startups; and Vertical Harvest (Pullman), which will leverage additional funding to create new green technology jobs, provide healthy food sources to food desert communities, and strengthen the local food production economy on the Southside.

“These neighborhood anchor projects are an exciting step in the effort to accelerate development and drive access to resources in historically disinvested communities on Chicago’s South and West sides,” said We Rise Together director Gloria Castillo. “By tackling barriers to economic opportunity in these communities, we are positioning our entire city and county to prosper.”

(Photo credit: Iulian Ursache via pixabay)