How it all began.
One Pastor's Vision
Reverend Wilfredo "Choco" De Jesús is the former Senior Pastor of New Life Covenant Church (NLC), now Executive Director of U.S. Missions for Assemblies of God. He is endearingly known as Pastor Choco.
When he became Senior Pastor in 2000, NLC grew from a weekly attendance of 120 to 17,000 globally through church campuses, plants, and more than 110 ministries reaching the most disenfranchised – the broken hearted, poor, homeless, prostitutes, drug addicts and gang members.
Pastor Wilfredo De Jesus has been instrumental in the development of several community-based programs.
Through funds raised entirely by church members, New Life Covenant purchased a farm for the rehabilitation of the women who struggling to overcome addiction and/or prostitution. The farm, New Life for Women, opened its doors on August 4, 2002. This was not an easy task. To raise the money for the farmland, Pastor Choco along with a few other members ran 160 miles from the farm to Chicago in 2002 (watch the video below). The farm is 3 hours driving distance. We ran so that women who are broken and lost could dream again. In 2007, an annex was added to the farm to accommodate more women.
The Chicago Dream Center officially incorporated and became a non-profit 501(c)3 on June 30, 2005.
The Chicago Dream Center strives to meet the practical needs of people while sharing with them faith, hope, and love. In this way, our goal is to lead our community toward a new life and to give individuals the hope to dream again. We are a non-profit organization that offers faith-based, multifaceted programs and services to assist low-income, homeless and under-served individuals and families move toward self-sufficiency in Jesus' name!
Outreach to the sexually exploited, prostituted, trafficked, gang members, addicts, and homeless has become our mission.
Chicago Dream Center programs:
New Life for Women Residential Program, Elgin Dream Center, Manna for Life Food & Clothing Pantry, Bridge to Life, Sunday Love Homeless outreach, Cook County Jail, Dream Café, and Rose of Sharon women's street outreach.