As the holiday season nears, many homeless people will encounter harsh, cold winter days and nights. This year, Chance The Rapper hopes to make a difference on that issue with a new plan. In order to do this, the MC is partnering with Empowerment Plan in Detroit, a company that makes coats for homeless people.
“It’s a very insulated coat, but the cool thing about it is that at night time, the back hatch of the coat flips out and turns into a sleeping bag,” Chance told WGCI in Chicago.
“The coolest part of this two-part plan is that they only hire homeless women to work in the factories to make these coats and pay them above minimum wage to do it. It’s a longterm plan to help out with homeless people in Detroit. I’m partnering with these folks for something called Warmest Winter.”
This partnership brings Empowerment Plan to the Chi, where Chance hopes to pass out 1,000 of these coats. Right now, they have a fundraising goal of $100,000. The Rapper — who has also been working extensively with Chicago school children — says this is very important for the city for several reasons.
“There’s 140,000 homeless folks in Chicago right now,” Chance explained. “A lot of them are youth. They found out earlier this year that 20 percent of Chicago Public School children are homeless. Chicago has one of the coldest winters in America and a lot of people die of hypothermia and coldness related illnesses.”
If the plan in Chicago works, a new Empowerment factory could be built in the Windy City.
“You can go to ChanceRaps.com and donate anything,” Chance added. “There’s prizes, but beyond the prizes, I don’t want to tell you about the perks. I just want to tell you we can save a whole lot of lives this winter and next winter if we empower Chicago.”
