Urban Warriors youth sports and skills program set to open Chicago community center
A new center dedicated to sports and community programming will soon open in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood.
What was once a vacant storefront at 3943 W. 26th St. is now bubbling with excitement. Inside, Rey Raigoza and his team of Urban Warriors, were hanging signs and putting other final touches on the space Thursday.
The space for Urban Warriors was a milestone years in the making.
"Honestly its very simple — we have a home, Raigoza said. "We have a home to the movement."
The Urban Warriors movement started out as a baseball program in 2016, where Raigoza coached and mentored 15 kids. He recruited the kids directly from the neighborhood, providing an outlet that filled an outstanding void.
The program would later snowball to several other sports and activity programs, ringing true to that famous paraphrased quote from "Field of Dreams," "If you build it, they will come."
And indeed they did.
"We grew it to a soccer program, a podcast, chess, yoga — and you know, serving a little over 400 kids now," Raigoza said.
After years of meeting at public parks and local schools, the non-profit organization is now getting ready to open the doors to its own community center on 26th Street.
The 3,000 square-foot, two-story facility is equipped with a miniature soccer field, and will soon house two batting cages, a weight room, a classroom for academic mentoring, and dedicated space for yoga and the Urban Warriors youth podcast — which CBS News Chicago has covered before.
"We need to be in spaces like tournaments. We need to be in spaces where we compete, where we have a platform," Raigoza said. "It's about building this network of resources."
The Urban Warriors organization, which relies heavily on donations, is recruiting local youth all the time. Its programs are free of charge.
The only thing Urban Warriors asks in return is civic engagement, where participants must volunteer a certain number of hours a year — paying it forward to their community.
"If there are any more Urban Warriors out there who want to be part of our movement, just knock — and we're here," said Raigoza.
