The Pritzker Traubert Foundation has announced Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative as the winner of its 2022 Chicago Prize grant competition, supporting a community-led initiative to provide services and create economic opportunity in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood.

The $10 million award—an annual prize intended to jumpstart economic activity and spark interest from investors—will bolster the development of Sankofa Wellness Village, a $50 million community development project to replace vacant lots with an array of services that include a health clinic providing comprehensive healthcare services, a fitness center, after-school care facilities, a credit union to help unbanked members of the community, a business incubator to help entrepreneurs start and expand wealth-creating businesses, job training facilities, and a community grocery initiative to make fresh food more accessible to the community’s 17,000 residents.

The collaborative was formed by more than 20 community organizations, including New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, West Side United, Community Builders, Rush University Medical Center, Erie Family Health Centers, and the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago.

The project, which is expected to be completed by 2025, represents the first major investment in West Garfield Park since the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., which triggered national protests and resulted in damage to many commercial buildings and homes in the community, the Chicago Tribune reports. According to the foundation, the average life expectancy of West Garfield Park residents is 69 years—among the lowest in Chicago and well below the national average of 77 years.

“[W]hen you’re talking about communities with this level of disinvestment, a lot has to happen,” Pritzker Traubert Foundation president Cindy Moelis told the Tribune. “We’re hoping these investments bring others to the table.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Steve Greer)