‘This was built for you.’ West Garfield Park celebrates nearly $50 million wellness center

Marquis Pitts was on the verge of breaking down as he shared his story with about 300 people packed onto a basketball court in the new Sankofa Village Wellness Center in West Garfield Park.

He got tired of opening his phone and seeing yet another person he grew up with dead, “another rest in peace,” he said Thursday. The senseless killing has to stop, he pleaded.

“That’s what this wellness village is about. This is about saving lives,” said Pitts, 28, who has spent his entire life in this West Side community.

“Don’t let this become something we have,” he cautioned. “Make it something we use because this was built for you.”

Like many in the crowd, Pitts was there to celebrate the opening of Sankofa — and heal. At 60,000 square feet, around the size of a football field, Sankofa beams along Madison Street, a once-bustling corridor devastated by white flight and the 1968 riots that has not seen big investment in decades. At the new center, residents can see a doctor or a dentist, play in the indoor gym, stroll on a walking track, or get help finding a job.

It was years in the making and created with community input to improve health disparities in West Garfield Park. In 2023, residents in this mostly Black neighborhood were expected to live until 67 years old — the lowest life expectancy in Chicago — compared to 87 in the Loop, where the majority of residents are white.

New Chicago public health data for 2024 shows progress. Residents in West Garfield Park can now expect to live on average about three years longer, until they’re 70 years old. This community now ranks third for having the lowest life expectancy, with Fuller Park on the South Side ranking first.

Most Chicagoans are expected to live longer. A new Chicago health department presentation said life expectancy across the city was “at an all-time high” of about 80 years in 2024, up slightly from 2023, with the largest increases on the South and West sides.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, average life expectancy regardless of race has jumped about four years, the new data shows. Black Chicagoans can expect to live on average to 73, white residents to 82, Latino residents to 83, and Asian residents to 87.

Black Chicagoans have made the most gains since the pandemic, adding almost six years to their lives from 2020 to 2024, followed by Latinos, Asians and white residents. Average life expectancy for Asians and Latinos is still lower than before the pandemic.

Chronic disease fueled by heart disease is still the biggest driver of the so-called death gap between Black Chicagoans and other races, the city’s presentation said. But homicides and opioid overdoses contributed to fewer deaths. A spokesperson for the Chicago public health department declined an interview request.

Overall, a 20-year life expectancy gap remains in the city. In the majority Black neighborhood of Fuller Park, residents can expect to live on average to 68, while those in the Loop can continue to expect to live the longest, to 88.

During the Sankofa Village ceremony, Ayesha Jaco, executive director of West Side United, one of several organizations that helped create the wellness center, read a letter she wrote to her late grandmother and a late friend who was deeply involved in Sankofa. Jaco described how much people can do at the center without having to leave the neighborhood, how her grandmother and friend would love the bright art on the wall, how an exhibition about the Great Migration would be in the cafe.

“I just wanted you to know that after all this time, positive change came to the neighborhood,” Jaco said. “I just wish you were around to see it, but I know you’re here with us.”

Sankofa, at nearly $50 million, is part of a bigger plan to create a walkable village with other nearby investments, including the MAAFA Center for Arts and Activism and the K Entrepreneurship Development Hub.

The idea is to keep money from leaving the area, ultimately improving conditions that contribute to how long a person can expect to live. Now, many residents leave West Garfield Park for basic resources, from grocery shopping in nearby suburbs to exercising at parks they drive to because it’s not safe to take a walk close to home.

WBEZ documented this and more in a series of stories about how the life expectancy gap in West Garfield Park affects generations of families and the fabric of the community. Sankofa is one of several community efforts to narrow the life expectancy gap.

Kristen Schorsch covers the health of the region for WBEZ.