FAQs
What is the Kroc Center?
The Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center will be The Salvation Army’s newest and largest corps community center. It will be unlike any other facility in the greater Chicago area in terms of size and scope and will offer an array of education, sports, arts and support programs never before available under one roof. The Kroc Center represents the single largest investment by a social service organization in the city’s history.
We invite you to join us and become a part of this extraordinary opportunity to improve the lives of children, teens, adults and seniors in Chicago.
Where is the Kroc Center?
The Kroc Center is located at 1250 W. 119th Street in the heart of the West Pullman community. The Kroc Center will also serve residents from neighboring Roseland, Beverly, Morgan Park, Washington Heights, Calumet Park, Riverdale and southern suburbs.
How will the Kroc Center make a difference?
The Kroc Center will make a tremendous impact in an economically disadvantaged community lacking resources, with a particular focus on preventing violence and revitalizing the community. The Kroc Center presents us with an extraordinary opportunity to dramatically improve
the lives of children and teens who need a safe haven and positive alternatives to gangs and drugs.
The Kroc Center will also be an engine for economic stimulus for the community. Kroc Centers, wherever they are, inevitably attract new business, create jobs, increase home ownership and lower crime rates. The Kroc Center will not only create jobs, it will provide job training and
placement programs, literacy classes, computer classes and GED preparation for adults.
The Kroc Center will be a destination for people of all ages, and will offer programs for the entire family. More than 250,000 people live within a three-mile radius of the Kroc Center, and about 2,500 people are expected to use the Kroc Center every day.
The Kroc Center is already making a difference in the community through a team of Kroc Center program officers and instructors who, for the past three years, have been running a wide range of arts, educational, sports,
after-school programs and summer camps for students at schools near the Kroc Center site.
Who are Ray and Joan Kroc?
This project began with the vision of the late Joan Kroc. With suburban Chicago serving as the headquarters for McDonald’s, the company founded by her husband Ray Kroc, Mrs. Kroc felt an affinity for this city and its people. Joan Kroc was devoted to helping people of all ages develop their talents and fulfill their dreams, and to help young people build character and confidence. Upon her death in 2003, she passed on to The Salvation Army the largest gift ever made to a private charity, designated to help establish state-of-the-art facilities in underserved communities where children and adults can be engaged in a wide range of programs and services.
How can I participate in transforming lives through the Kroc Center?
Joan Kroc wanted to ensure that Kroc Centers would not diminish the critical human services that The Salvation Army already delivers, like shelter, food, clothing and disaster relief. She also knew that many people would not be able to afford the costs of Kroc Center programs, so she established an endowment to support program scholarships, program equipment and ongoing Kroc Center operations.
A gift to the Kroc Center helps guarantee that every child and adult, today and for generations to come, will be able to enjoy all the Kroc Center has to offer. It also provides operational stability.
When you make a gift to The Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center, you become a part of the largest project ever undertaken by The Salvation Army, and you help to enrich the mind, body and spirit—provide hope—and transform lives.
The Kroc Center also offers many volunteer opportunities for those who wish to become directly involved in making a difference.
