Our North Star - The Esprit de Corps Campus™
A permanent home for those who serve.
One Chicago location. Recreation, wellness, service, and family programming under one roof, every day.
Eventually a network of Campuses in cities across the country. This is what the Foundation is being built to deliver.
Why the Campus matters
Chicago is where we start. Illinois is where we prove it. The country is where we take it. One in four veterans is already looking for a place to serve; the Campus gives them, and the families around them, a home to belong to year-round. First in Chicago, then wherever military families need it next.
Sources - 1 Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (veterans.illinois.gov). 2 U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, Chicago city (census.gov). 3 AmeriCorps, Volunteering and Civic Life in America (americorps.gov). Figures reflect the most recent publicly available data as of publication.
Why we’re building this
Service gives you a place. Civilian life takes it away.
Every service member knows what it’s like to have a place that’s yours. A unit. A base. A crew that shows up for each other without asking. The uniform ends and a lot of that disappears overnight. The structure, the people, the reason to walk through the door.
The Campus is a tight-knit community you can count on year round. A place that stays open after the event ends. Somewhere to drop in on a Tuesday night when there’s nothing on the calendar, no RSVP, no form to fill out. Open to the public because building community takes a wide door, with private space inside for partner organizations, service-connected families, our team, and the resources people actually need.
Why we call it the Campus
A center delivers services.
A campus brings a
community together.
Co-founders Damian Garcia + Roger Villa - UIC Student Veterans Affairs
A center is usually a place you go for a particular service. The Esprit de Corps Campus is meant to be a place people can belong to, return to, and grow through. Recreation, wellness, career and education, family programming, community service, events, and partner organizations - different parts of life, under one larger home.
Esprit began on a campus.
The earliest conversations behind the Foundation happened at the University of Illinois Chicago, where Damian and Roger met through the student veterans community and started talking with other veterans, service members, and military-connected students about what comes after service and what was still missing.
That campus gave EDC its first place to gather. Someday, we want to build one of our own - not because it’s a school, but because it’s meant to bring different parts of life together in one place.
EDC started on a campus. Now we’re working toward building one for the community that inspired it.
Until the Campus exists
The Ranks portal is the Foundation’s first unified space for the community. A digital version of what the Campus will one day become in person - where the EDC community gathers, connects, finds resources, joins chapters, and shows up for each other.
The vision
The energy of a great recreational space. The soul of a community you built yourself.
A full fitness and recreation center the whole neighborhood can use. Group training, outdoor activation, leadership events, and programming that runs every day. No membership card required to walk in and move.
Private space held for the mission-connected community. Family rooms for military spouses and kids. Meeting space for veteran nonprofits already doing the work. Co-hosting space for partners, chapters, and community organizations who want to activate their own events here and multiply the impact alongside ours. Rooms that quiet down for a hard conversation and open up for a hundred people. The infrastructure of a community you can actually feel.
Not an office with a flag in the lobby. A place that’s always alive, always welcoming, and always worth showing up to.
This is community right now
The people are already here. The place is next.
Every photograph is from a Foundation event in Chicago. The Campus is where this stops being seasonal and starts being daily.
Back to School Community Day MURPH Challenge & Festival 
Chicago River Kayak Outing
A word from the founder
“Esprit isn’t an event calendar. It’s a home. A place anyone who’s served, or the family that served with them, can walk into and know they belong. Community that isn’t scheduled once a year. It’s lived every day.”
Where we are - and who we need
No building yet. Building the coalition that will.
Right now, the Campus is a vision. There is no building, no floor plan, no capital campaign. There’s a clear picture of what it needs to be, a growing community that proves the demand, and a founding team committed to making it real.
We can’t build this alone and we don’t want to. The best version of the Campus comes from a coalition. Veterans, military families, neighbors, community organizations, mission-aligned partners, local government, Chicago philanthropy, and the companies that already stand behind this community. Every one of you is invited into the journey.
Every event we run is evidence. Every family who shows up is proof. Every partner who aligns with the mission is a building block. The sooner the right people hear what we’re building, the sooner we break ground together.
Funding, land, design, policy, network, time: if any of those are yours to offer, we want to meet you.
Get involved
Four ways to help build this.
The Campus won't come from a single donor or a single decision. It'll come from a coalition. Here's where you fit in.
Vision & Design
Architects, designers, urban planners, and space strategists who want to help shape what the Campus becomes.
Funding & Development
Donors, grantmakers, real estate professionals, and capital partners who can move the vision forward.
Strategic Guidance
Board members, advisors, and nonprofit operators with experience building community institutions.
Community Building
The strongest case for a permanent home is a community that already exists. Show up, volunteer, bring someone with you.
The lifetime vision
Chicago first. Every military family in America, eventually.
The long-term goal is to institutionalize this experience and space across the country. A network of Esprit de Corps Campuses in cities where military families actually live.
Reassigned, discharged, relocating, or just visiting family across the country: a service member or spouse walks into the nearest Campus and already knows the community, the people, the resources, and the rhythm. Like going from one base to the next. Some things change. The thing that matters is already there.
We started in Chicago. In our lifetime, we want to see this reach every military family in the country.
The opportunity - Chicago
A permanent home for the people
already here.
The Campus is being designed for a Chicago that already holds one of the largest military-connected communities in the country. Nowhere in the city is there a single space built for all of them.
85,000+
Veterans in Cook County
10,000+
Illinois Guard, Reserve, active duty
250,000+
Veterans + military families, Chicagoland
1
Permanent home - the Campus
Figures: U.S. Census ACS 5-year estimates, VA National Center for Veterans Analysis, Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Family counts estimated from service-member counts × average household size.
Build it with us
Pledge, sponsor, or offer what you build well.
Big visions take big leaps and big faith. Tell us how you'd help build the Campus and we'll follow up with the right next step.
How would you help build it?
Help us build the future
A permanent home. Built by all of us.
Fund it. Help design it. Open a door. Bring a neighbor. Every piece of this comes together with the coalition that steps up for it.
Not ready for the coalition form? Message the Campus team through our contact form.