Purpose Prize

Marc Freedman Portrait

The Latest from CoGenerate

Documentary Brings the Beauty of Cogeneration to PBS

Documentary Brings the Beauty of Cogeneration to PBS

A new documentary film, Ink & Linda, chronicles the unexpected friendship between Inksap, a Vietnamese-American street artist in his 20s, and Linda, a white modern dance teacher in her 70s. Shortly after a chance encounter brings these two together, they begin...

Announcing the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity

Announcing the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity

We’re out to show the world that older and younger people can help solve pressing problems when they work together. To that end, today we’re launching the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity, a partnership with the Ares Charitable Foundation to elevate...

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Robert Sanders

Harvey Brooks Foundation
Purpose Prize Fellow 2009

Under Bishop Sanders’ leadership, the Harvey Brooks Foundation provides programs and services for low-income, urban youth and adults that build character, life skills, scholastic achievement, and economic opportunities.

A longtime minister, Sanders took his faith in God and applied it to his faith in his community. As pastor of All Nations Church of God in Christ in Joliet, Illinois, and a bishop with more than 70 churches in his jurisdiction, Sanders sees the effects of poverty, teen pregnancy, and gang violence in the urban areas near Chicago. In 1998, Sanders established the faith-based Harvey Brooks Foundation (named for the founding pastor of Sanders’ church) in Joliet. The foundation serves as a community organization that provides an array of programs and services for at-risk youth and families, substance abusers, and senior citizens – including after-school tutoring, recreational activities, counseling for juveniles and ex-offenders, and free meals. The programs encourage community-grown efforts to minister to the entire neighborhood, regardless of church affiliation or membership. Though Sanders’ foundation serves all ages, its focus is on youth. “I understand what attracts a child to the gang culture: the syndrome of violence from one generation to the next; youth in need of help with nowhere to turn; and the sense of helplessness that leads to hopelessness,” Sanders says.