In 1947, an idea for establishing a cooperative community was conceived by a man named Louis Shirky, a member of the Church of the Brethren. He learned that a DuPage county dairy farm, owned by the Goltermann family, was for sale, just to the south of the town of Lombard in an unincorporated area of the county known as York Center.

Fourteen families raised $30,000 to purchase the property and began the work of creating their own neighborhood. This pioneering, faith-based effort provided fair housing, community and opportunity in an era of white flight, redlining and restrictive covenants that effectively prevented non-white Americans from fully participating in the American dream.

Despite acts of overt racism that included a cross burning, bullet holes through widows, internal conflict and systemic economic racism, the York Center Co-op and the white, black, Asian and Jewish families who lived there, demonstrated to themselves, their neighbors and America, what results when determined people put aside racial, religious and class differences, and work together for the common good.

Learn more about this incredible story in a screening of Common Good: The York Center Cooperative Story on Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 2pm.

Event is FREE, but registration required.