Welcome to the
Circa25: Harlem Resurrection Initiative
Faith-Rooted Economic Resurrection for Harlem & Beyond
Circa ’25 is resurrecting a new Harlem Renaissance, a network of God centered spiritually rooted villages that prioritize addressing generational healing, trauma, conversations, safety, stability, and long-term economic justice.
Mission & Vision
Harlem Resurrection: Circa ’25 acquire and repurpose Harlem’s most vulnerable sites neglected churches, vacant schools, endangered brownstones, and historic lots transforming them into campuses, healing villages, and sacred infrastructure designed for community ownership and national significance.
Community Dashboard
75% of SNAP recipients operate at or below the lowest literacy levels; 90% of high school dropouts rely on welfare. Adults struggling with literacy are more likely to repeat cycles of joblessness, poverty, and incarceration. 43% of adults with the lowest literacy levels live in poverty. 50% of chronically unemployed adults are functionally illiterate
Why Harlem? Why Now?
Billions have flowed to Hudson Yards, Fifth Avenue, and Staten Island, while Harlem’s sacred blocks were left to decay. From the Great Migration to the Met Gala, Harlem has shaped culture, art, and resistance, yet remains underfunded and overlooked.
Today, we reclaim what was neglected. Not with bitterness, but with boldness. We are the descendants of the dreamers, rising not to protest what was lost, but to build a better future.
Harlem Resurrection Project
Our mission includes:Cultural landmarking of Harlem’s sacred and historical assets
The launch of school campuses as a sanctuary for faith, learning, and legacy
Transit safety reform along critical corridors like 125th Street
Deeply affordable housing, spiritual housing models, and intergenerational sanctuariesPolicy, curriculum, and development models rooted in freedom, dignity, and destinyThis is not just real estate.
It is the resurrection of a people and the rebirth of a covenant city.
Youth & Education
Our community is at a crossroads.
Only 16% of Black and Hispanic 4th graders are proficient in math
44% score below basic
NYC spends $556k per incarcerated person vs $38k per Harlem public school student
Black women face severe maternal health risks, 457 cases per 10k births and 9× higher likelihood of mortality
Rent burden is >50% for many Black households in Harlem, with median rent around $1,510/month and income ≈ $49k
Harlem was once the cultural, spiritual and intellectual capital of the world, and through community it will be again.
Inspired by the impact of initiatives
Circa ’25’s Residential School is a culturally compotent, spirit and faith-centered, trauma-informed residential academy where students live and learn on-site within a caring community. This immersive model supports holistic development—spiritual formation, academic rigor, and vocational skills—while nurturing belonging and stability
Intergenerational Village: Where Youth, Elders, and Sacred Futures Unite
This intentional design—a holy brigade of youth and elders—builds a village where wisdom breathes hope, stories heal trauma, and community becomes covenant. Circa ’25’s intergenerational housing is not charity—it is ancestral stewardship made real. This approach ensures the work is grounded in cultural understanding, spiritual roots, and shared responsibility.
Adult & Family Services
We will also have housing for sober living, addiction detox, veterans, recently returning citizens, trade training, tech, hygiene drop-ins, emergency shelter, pathways to permeant housing, elder sanctuary, pet-inclusive services for our unhoused with pets.We will house and heal our vulnerable community and ensure they know they are not forgotten.
Youth-Led, Community-Grounded
Food Source
At the heart of Circa ’25 is the belief that food is a God-given right, not a luxury. We are restoring Harlem’s food sovereignty by transforming vacant lots and underused land into sacred gardens, vertical farms, healing kitchens, and community co-ops — all run by local residents, elders, and youth. No child of Harlem should ever go hungry on land our ancestors once tilled with their bare hands — and with God’s help, they won’t.
Spiritual Foundation
At Circa ’25, we believe this world is spiritual — and Harlem is sacred ground. While we honor the traditional church, we also recognize it hasn’t always had the tools to heal our communities the way it hoped to. We are led by God the Father and the Holy Spirit, rooted in both the Bible and our ancestral traditions, the law of duality. Every church, school, home, and empty lot holds spiritual power. Every building we restore is a prayer. Every new development is a covenant. This is a divine mission to address generational wounds, reclaim what was lost, and guide Harlem into a future of faith, family, freedom, and full restoration.
Community Support
This is your moment to stand for Harlem. To restore what was stolen. To build what’s holy.We need land. We need funding. We need you.Sign the petition. Donate what you can. Share this vision.
Contact
Guiding Star Covenant Foundation
[email protected]
Harlem, NY | A Project of Spiritual, Economic, and Ancestral Repair