Every neighborhood has that building that seems like it’s got a new business every week. In Roseland, it was a brown brick building next to the Houston and Gale towers that once upon a time was a grocery store as well as a barber shop, then an airbrush shop that made our T-shirts and wrote names on stones for the memorial. Back in 1988, when James and I moved onto Michigan, everybody stopped at that grocery store for chips and hot sauce and snacks. Then the owner added a liquor store. But that only lasted until the new congressman, who’d made it his mission to take the liquor stores off corners, shut it down.
The owner was not one to be discouraged. Before you knew it, the building was up and running again as a barbecue joint that pumped out the mouth-watering scent of ribs and brisket every single day. Eventually, that restaurant closed down, and a catering business moved in. That lasted about two years before it closed for good. After that, the space sat empty.
I’d had my eye on that building for at least ten years. Every time I saw the owner, I asked him how much he’d let it go for. Every time, he gave me a different answer. He started at $130,000—way out of my range. After the recession hit in 2008, he dropped it down to $90,000, and then $86,500. When he finally went down to $80,000, I got excited. It wasn’t like I could go out and buy that building the next day, but it was doable. We could raise that kind of money one day, I thought.
God just wouldn’t take that building off my heart. Every time a donor came to visit or I got a big-name guest, I walked them over to the building. “One day, I believe God is going to give KOB this building,” I told them. Everybody promised to help. Most people didn’t follow through. But I didn’t stop believing. I knew my mom prayed on it. She even walked around the whole building with her anointing oil, knocking on heaven’s door.
For a while, I rented the empty space in that building. That had been the center, KOB’s home, until the roof caved in. And even though the landlord never did fix that roof, I didn’t give up on that building. All it needed was some love. I just knew we could buy it and fix it up and use all that space to revolutionize the neighborhood. If I thought we were doing great things just in my living room, there was no telling what we could do with a place like that.
God had given me a burning desire to open up a technology entrepreneurship center. I envisioned young people working with professionals to learn everything from coding to graphic design. I wanted them to learn how to make solar panels. I wanted to provide training for skilled trades like construction, plumbing, and carpentry. The whole place would be state-of-the-art and staffed with only the best teachers. Any kid who went through the program would leave with the skills to get a job and make great money. And, of course, we’d have a music studio so the young people could have an artistic outlet.
I’ve been working with young people long enough to know that the number-one factor leading to violence is hopelessness. Kids who see no path for themselves beyond the gangs, who see drug dealing as their most likely profession, who don’t have a prayer of getting into college, much less paying for it—these are the kids who think they’re worthless. In their eyes, their lives are disposable. When they have nothing to lose, they’re not afraid to take risks. Risks like carrying a gun in their backpack and shooting somebody who looks at them wrong or who says the wrong thing. A kid with nothing to lose is dangerous.
If these kids had skills, if they were employable, if they could make a big, fat paycheck, it would change the game completely. They would have something to live for. Something to lose. I truly believe that violence wouldn’t be an issue if kids had the right training and could get good jobs. I can’t redevelop my neighborhood myself or convince city officials to bring businesses, jobs, and places of entertainment to Roseland. Those investments would make a huge difference, but I also understand a violent neighborhood is a tough sell to a major corporation. I couldn’t change our circumstances, but I could equip kids to get jobs and make better lives for themselves.
I just couldn’t do it in my living room. I needed more room. And that would require a true act of God. Lord, we need a miracle, I prayed over and over.
I truly believed that God would give the building to us in His time. But my mom also taught me that God doesn’t want us to sit on our hands doing nothing. So I talked about the building every chance I got—including during my speech at the L’Oréal Woman of Worth awards. As I spoke of my dreams for the future, I told the crowd about the building on my street that I had set my sights on and what we could do if only we could buy it.
Now, I knew there were celebrities in the audience. I knew that supermodel Karlie Kloss was watching. I’d shouted hello to her as I was in the middle of taking a picture with Diane Keaton. But I honestly never thought twice about what they might do once they returned home.
A few weeks after the ceremony, though, I was back in my house, scrolling through Facebook, when I saw I had a new notification. Somebody had tagged me in a video. That somebody was Karlie Kloss. My whole body went numb as I saw the video had over two thousand likes. That can’t be right, I thought.
But it was. There was Karlie, as beautiful as always, telling the entire internet that she was “left speechless” by my story and asking people to donate and help me buy the building. Tears rolled down my face as I listened to her talk about how I inspired her with my work and my passion and how she wanted to help.
Nobody’s really going to donate, I thought. Who would give money to some stranger they don’t know nothing about?
But I was wrong. The next thing I knew, Karlie’s people contacted me to set up a way that people could donate directly to my building fund. And the money just poured in. Every time I checked the bank account, there was more. I was living in a dream, in complete euphoria. We’re going to get that building, I thought. I’d hoped and prayed for so long. I’d believed in my heart that God would give it to me. But I’m only human. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t ever think, Dang, I’m not going to get it. Now, it was on the cusp of happening, and He was the only One who could get credit for it. Why else would an international supermodel plead my case to the world?
Within a week and a half, people I’d never even laid eyes on had donated over $55,000. I was in complete disbelief. In ten years, I hadn’t raised a fraction of that amount. The money from Secret Millionaire and my CNN Hero award was long gone by now, after replacing a van, paying rent on our old building space, and keeping these kids fed and clothed. But now we were more than halfway to $80,000.
Ain’t that just like God? I thought. It was a beautiful feeling, to feel so supported by God and the people who cared about His vision for helping kids. I wanted to make sure He got the glory. This was beyond me. Beyond any human. I took out my phone and recorded a video to post to Facebook thanking every single person who had given a few dollars and telling them about our hopes for the building.
I knew $55,000 wasn’t the amount the building owner had told me, but I figured it was worth a shot. I called him up and told him how much we’d raised. “Would you consider selling it for that amount?” I asked him.
God has worked plenty of miracles in my life, but this was one instance where He chose not to move. “I’m already letting it go at a bargain,” the owner said flatly.
I hung up the phone feeling discouraged. I’d felt such a high seeing all those donations pour in. I thought for sure we were this close to getting a building. All those people who gave me money were counting on us buying it. But now, I had no idea how we’d come up with the rest of the cash.
I had one last thought. One Hail Mary. Maybe L’Oréal could help. They believed in KOB. They knew how important our work was. Maybe they would stand in the gap.
So I wrote an email. I told L’Oréal all about Karlie and the video, about how much money had poured in and how much we still had left to go. I sent them Karlie’s video. And I prayed as I hit Send. It’s in God’s hands now. He got us this far. He’s not going to leave us hanging now.
And He didn’t. My heart about burst out of my chest when I read L’Oréal’s response saying they’d see what they could do to help. Don’t ask me what strings they pulled or who they had to convince to say yes. But it wasn’t long before they called to tell me they’d cover the rest of the money I needed for the building.
Thank you, Jesus, I prayed over and over.
The day I closed on the building, my whole family gathered in my backyard to celebrate. We barbecued rib tips for everybody—Aisha and her new fiancé, my mom, James, my auntie, my daughters, my grandsons. Music blared from a speaker as we laughed together, releasing the tension we’d felt waiting for this building.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off my mom. Her face had a few more lines since the day she’d told me I should do something with those kids all those years before, her hair was a little grayer. But the light in her eyes never changed. The light that came from her devotion to the Lord, her constant belief that He would show up and do what He had said He’d do.
“I knew God was gonna do it,” she said, smiling as she shook her head. “I just knew it. When you pray to God, you just got to wait on Him. It’s on His time. And He did it.”
But we weren’t done waiting on God. We still aren’t. We bought that building knowing it’s nothing but a shell. It needs walls. New flooring. Heating and air conditioning. A new roof—that landlord never did fix it when it fell in years before. One contractor estimated it would cost $55,000 to fix it up, and that was on the low end.
I look around that building now and see the missing walls, the dirty floor, even a toilet and sink sitting in the middle of a room, disconnected from any kind of plumbing. Anybody else might look at this building and think it’s hopeless. But I know better than that. I’m not worried. I don’t know how we’re going to raise the money, but it doesn’t keep me up at night. I know God is going to do it. Fixing up a building isn’t too hard for Him. He’s come through every step of the way. He’s accomplished the impossible many times before.
Take James. Back in 2003, he walked around our house grumbling and fussing about these kids taking over his castle. I laugh when I tell the story of the TV now, but it sure wasn’t funny then. For a while, I really wondered if he might divorce me over Kids Off the Block. But God came through. He changed his heart. Now James is my partner, my biggest supporter next to my mom. When I look at the building, he’s right there with me, nodding his head and saying, “God’s gonna do it. Don’t even worry about it.”
Or my daughter Aisha. She was just thirteen years old when I flipped our lives upside down, inviting all her friends into our house. She didn’t want to share her mama then. She wasn’t sure if I had enough love in my heart to go around. But I did. And I do. I know KOB has transformed her into the confident, take-charge woman she is today. I know she’s the future of KOB, and I know God will equip her just like He equipped me.
I look at kids like Zeek. That boy had the worst attitude in the South Side when he walked in my door, with those big lips of his sticking out so far it would have been funny if it hadn’t made me so mad. He sure wasn’t somebody I would tell other kids to look up to. And now here he is, mentoring kids, writing positive raps, and helping me at programming.
I point to kids like Darrell, the boy who lived next door with his brother, Levi. He was quiet and withdrawn when my little music studio drew him over to my house and into KOB. At twenty-six years old the last time he came to see me, you couldn’t shut him up. He’s the top salesperson at his job, he has a beautiful fiancée, and he’s got two adorable children. When he saw me, he wrapped me up in a big bear hug.
“Miss Diane, I was desensitized to everything going on, but you helped me,” he told me. “Thank you for giving me confidence.”
I’ve got a whole list of kids who earned scholarships to colleges in Illinois and Wisconsin. Kids who got their high school diplomas when everybody said they’d drop out. It seems like a week doesn’t go by without somebody stopping by my house or sending me a message on social media to tell me how KOB changed their lives.
Sometimes you don’t see it right away. The thing about helping kids is that it’s messy. You can show them a better way, but you can’t change their circumstances. You can’t take them away from the gang on their block or the cousin who’s a bad influence or their family history of dealing drugs. So sometimes, a lot of times, they fall. They mess up. Maybe they don’t drop out of their gang right away, maybe they keep selling drugs, but you don’t give up. You keep planting the seed, not knowing when it will finally grow. Their lives are still worth saving, no matter how many mistakes they make. You just never know if this is the time it will sink in.
And sometimes success is just keeping their names out of my memorial. Just keeping them alive is a victory. Especially when they seem hell-bent on putting themselves in situations that land them staring down the barrel of a gun.
It’s not for the faint of heart or the easily discouraged. Too many mornings, I’ve opened my eyes and thought, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t take the heartbreak one more second. Like the morning after TO was killed. Mornings after stepping between two boys pointing pistols at one another. Mornings after finding a mama sobbing at the memorial, clutching a stone with her baby’s name on it. It hurts. It never stops, even after all these years.
And yet, I’m still here. By God’s grace, I keep going. He pushes me forward, gives me strength, guides my steps. He’s the reason this started in the first place. He’s the reason we’re still going, still reaching new kids every day. He’s the reason teenage boys still want to hang out with an old lady with no money and no training.
People sometimes ask me if I ever look back in amazement at what I’ve done. How I started with a handful of kids in my living room and ended up running a flow-blown program. How I’ve saved lives, turned kids around, cut the violence in my neighborhood. Honestly, I don’t want to look back. I’m afraid that will trick me into thinking I did this, that it will give me some kind of glory. I don’t want that. God needs every bit of the glory. He deserves it. Make no mistake, this isn’t about me. I’m not special. God didn’t pick me because I’m talented or knowledgeable. He used me because I said yes. I followed Him out of my house and out of my comfort zone. And He does the same for anybody who follows Him.
I don’t know how God’s going to get us enough money to fix up this new building, but I know He’ll find a way. I’m not intimidated anymore. My faith makes me believe in things beyond me. Fixing up this building is beyond me. But so was inviting a few kids into my living room. All God wants us to do is answer His call. We don’t have to figure it out. God’s got it.
Anybody can make a difference right where they are with whatever they have. You don’t need money or education or even a plan. You just need to follow God. Listen to His call. Care about His people. His children. And do something. Don’t wait for a sign from heaven or for a check to come in the mail. Save a teen. Do something.