From the South Side to the Stock Exchange

Pastor Corey Brooks Rings the Bell for a New Kind of Capital

On a recent afternoon, the New York Stock Exchange echoed with an unfamiliar rhythm, not from the fluctuations of the Dow, but from the presence of a South Side pastor whose work has redefined what it means to invest in America.

Pastor Corey Brooks, founder of Project H.O.O.D., stood on the podium overlooking the trading floor where suits and symbols typically dominate and rang the opening bell. It was a moment decades in the making, forged not by hedge funds or IPOs, but by faith, concrete, and the hard math of community transformation.

Brooks didn’t come to Wall Street for optics. He came carrying the weight of a movement that began not in a boardroom, but on a rooftop in the heart of one of Chicago’s most underserved and over-policed neighborhoods.

In 2011, he pitched a tent atop a derelict motel across from O-Block, a block infamous for its violence, and refused to come down until his vision had funding. That vision: an 85,000-square-foot Leadership and Economic Opportunity Center, built for and by the people the system left behind.

And now, Wall Street is paying attention.

The Bell That Meant More

The NYSE bell has become a ceremonial moment for CEOs, celebrities, and companies about to go public. For Brooks, it was something else entirely — a declaration that social return on investment is just as real as financial ROI, and that capital must start flowing both ways.

“This wasn’t about symbolism,” Brooks said. “This was about making a statement: the same grit it takes to scale a company, it takes to save a neighborhood.”

His presence on the trading floor was more than a photo op. It was a collision of two Americas — the financial elite and the forgotten streets — sharing the same platform, if only for a moment.

Faith as Currency

Project H.O.O.D. isn’t backed by VCs. There’s no tech disruption here. What it offers is more radical: hope, job training, mentorship, housing support, and a physical place for growth in a zip code the world long ago gave up on.

The ringing of that bell wasn’t just for Project H.O.O.D. It was for every overlooked community waiting for infrastructure and investment. It was for every kid who never thought they’d see a skyline that didn’t belong to someone else.

Pastor Corey Brooks brought the South Side to Wall Street. And in doing so, he reminded the world of something it often forgets:

Communities are worth betting on.