One proposed bid for the former Shedd Elementary School - a community center

 I didn't update with regards to what's going on with Shedd School after that meeting that took place - which was a CPS meeting - with regards to what the plans are for that closed school. There are people who are coming up with plans for that school.

Recently I was alerted to an article from the Chicago Tribune which talks about one potential bid for the former Shedd Elementary School - branch of Bennett School.

I like how this article describes the building:

The low-slung building shows few signs of life: Ivy branches snake up the exterior walls, weaving through cracked brick and boarded-up windows. Its marquee sign reads like an epitaph, with faded block letters: “John G. Shedd Elementary School. A great place to learn!”

Would be nice if it could be again.

I snapped this shot in about 2009

Here's the bid that the article talks about and it's being offered by the mother of a slain police officer.

Peace for Preston currently operates a mentoring program out of the Harold Washington Library Center. The new Shedd building will expand that programming, as well as offer mental health support, vocational training and youth recreational programming.

“It’s a community center, so what better place than a school?” bidder Dionne Mhoon said.

Mhoon founded Peace for Preston in honor of her daughter, Aréanah Preston, a slain Chicago police officer. Preston, 24, was shot and killed as she returned home from a late-night shift in 2023. She loved to learn, Mhoon said, and had just completed her master of jurisprudence degree.

The nonprofit is still fundraising for the project, currently at almost half of its $150,000 goal.

“Hopefully someone will see this fixture in the community and know the work that she did,” Mhoon said. “She deserves to be honored.”

On a recent afternoon, Rachel Cooper, 32, stared at the Shedd from her bungalow across the street. She occasionally sees loiterers or vandals near the lot, and even periodic police activity. “It makes me a little bit nervous,” she said.

She moved to the neighborhood with her three young children in May. At the prospect of a community center, her eyes lit up. “If it’s something that my kids could go to, they would love that.”

I see they had to secure the front doors of the school in recent years in addition to the back doors where I'd have to enter to go to class everyday. It would be great to see some positive activity there again.

Any thoughts on this proposed community center?