Pastor Camping Out Again To Raise Money For Community Center
CHICAGO (CBS) -- He's at it again. The pastor who received national attention for spending 94 long days on the roof of a shuttered South Side motel is spending some more time outside.
It has been a year since Rev. Corey Brooks went on that rooftop to raise money to buy and demolish the hotel, to make way for a $15 million community center that he's hoping to build to help keep kids out of the street and away from guns.
Brooks, pastor of New Beginnings Church, is marking the anniversary by spending another 72 hours outside living in a tent on the gravel lot at 66th Street and King Drive -- where the motel once sat -- to raise money for Project HOOD, to fund the community center itself.
Brooks began his campaign on Thanksgiving Day, and is expected to go indoors again Sunday at 6 p.m. Brooks has been passing the time by keeping his mission alive on social media.
This time around, church and community members have joined Brooks in their own tents.
So far, Brooks and his church have raised $500,000 toward the mission. In October, the Pastor completed a 3,000-mile walk across America to raise money for the center.
"People ask me, 'When do you plan to have this money?' and I tell them 'By the end of 2013, we're going to have all this money, because we can't continue to go years and years without building a center.' So I have no doubt. Put me down: 2013. I said it on CBS, we're going to have this $15 million," Brooks said Saturday.
Filmmaker Tyler Perry contributed $100,000 to Brooks' cause in February allowing Brooks to achieve his goal of buying the motel and tearing it down, and Brooks said other celebrities have promised to donate to Project HOOD as well.
Brooks said he might extend his latest campaign to bring more awareness to the mission.
