FREE ROOT OPERATION
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Mission Statement
Free Root Operation is a nonprofit organization intercepting poverty induced gun violence by investing in the healing and empowerment of Black and Brown communities in Chicago and beyond through centering opportunity and compassion as core values of the organization.
About This Cause
We target those most vulnerable to the school to prison pipeline and prison industrial complex by creating an open dialogue about the experiences of poverty, trauma, and oppression as a way to foster community healing. We fight to make resources available,—such as jobs, food, housing, and financial agency—to communities plagued by gun violence. During emergencies resulting in a lack of sustainability, we provide specialized programming to mitigate harm to the communities we serve. Our commitment to people is our leading priority. As a result, we have pursued numerous initiatives supporting south and west-side Chicagoans to tackle our city’s gun violence epidemic. We hold true that gun violence in our communities directly results from divestment and disempowerment. In response, we work to invest in and empower our communities through programs like BLOOM. Stemming directly from the expressed needs of the people we work with, BLOOM is a necessary force for gun violence prevention and its impacts. Through the Chicago Food Pairing Program, we served hundreds of families by providing customized grocery deliveries, including household supplies, alongside resource list creation. Over time we realized that of the hundreds of people we serviced, the vast majority of them were Black and Brown women. As we conducted these deliveries, they shared with us that they lacked investment, support, a sense of self-worth, a voice, and an ability to dream. We listened. We studied. And with the needs of the people at the forefront, we are taking action. The BLOOM Cohort is a 6-month program that picks up where many leave off by deepening Black and Brown women’s relationship to self-care, self-love, and nourishment so that they may be transformed. As these women are provided with new, leisurely, and luxury wellness experiences, they expand their capacity to confront and defeat the barriers that have held them back from being active agents and changemakers for themselves, their families, and their communities. During the program, the women engage in intimate educational wellness workshops, adopt new practices, build sisterhood, embark on excursions, and work with a social worker through counseling to set and attain goals. The culmination of this program is a graduation ceremony where participants are awarded with a certification of completion and celebrated by their families and friends. At the end of the program, the women become ambassadors to support the next class while also taking on leadership roles in their families and communities. BLOOM acts to realize the empowerment of all women of color by focusing on those that are most vulnerable: low-income women, single mothers, women with disabilities, unemployed women, and more. These women, who are pillars in our communities and their families, are an untapped mine of budding leaders with the power and influence to help shift communities affected by poverty-induced gun violence from a state of scarcity to a thriving oasis. By prioritizing experiential learning, joy, conversation, and counseling, women of color leave the cohort having bloomed into the gifts that were always inside of them.