History

The late Gary Comer grew up on the South Side of Chicago and went to Paul Revere Elementary School in the 1930s. In 1998, after casually stopping by the Revere School and meeting then Principal Shelby Taylor, Gary decided he wanted to help. Initially, his involvement started with making sure that the school had up-to-date, working computers for the children to use. Before long, Gary was involved in many different aspects of the community. Throughout his numerous meetings with the community and leaders in the Revere neighborhood, one theme consistently emerged—the only way to eradicate crime and poverty is to provide more good jobs, and to educate a future generation that will graduate high school ready for a career or further education. Gary's idea started with the education of the young people of the Revere neighborhood, but school is only a modest part of the day. There is a large unstructured block of time away from school that allows additional opportunities for youth to get involved in more positive activities.

In 1980, Arthur Robertson started The South Shore Drill Team with a handful of kids and a vision: to teach unique flag, rifle and dance routines which they would perform all over the city. In the process, the Drill Team members would learn self-discipline, self-esteem, and pride in their accomplishments, and ultimately apply these same values to everything else they did in their lives. The Drill Team now has more than 300 members annually, performed all over the world and graduated well over 1,000 students.