Obama Foundation Announces Worker Appreciation Wall Honoring Nearly 4,500 Individuals Who Helped Bring the Obama Presidential Center to Life
Installation Includes 400 Partners Across Industries, With Many Rooted in the South Side and Across Chicago
February 26, 2026 at 9:00 AM CST
CHICAGO — The Obama Foundation today announced that the project will feature a Worker Appreciation Wall at the Obama Presidential Center, a permanent installation honoring the thousands of people whose work helped design, build, and deliver the Center as it prepares to open in June 2026.
Located in the Forum Lower Level Lobby, the Worker Appreciation Wall will be more than 30 feet long and 6 feet high, featuring approximately 4,500 individual names engraved into corian panels and highlighted in bronze, recognizing the collective effort required to bring the Obama Presidential Center to life. The installation reflects the Foundation’s commitment to gratitude, ensuring that the people behind the work are visible, honored, and remembered as essential partners in building a world-class institution rooted in community, opportunity, and shared prosperity.
“The Obama Presidential Center was built by thousands of hands and minds—many rooted on the South Side and across Chicago—working together to build something extraordinary,” said Valerie Jarrett, CEO of the Obama Foundation. “The Worker Appreciation Wall is a permanent expression of our gratitude and a reminder that this place, and its story, exist because of the people and businesses who committed their time, skill, and care to bringing it into being.”
The Worker Appreciation Wall will present names in alphabetical order, without titles or hierarchy. This approach underscores the belief that every contribution—across roles, disciplines, and backgrounds—played an essential part in shaping the Center.
The names included on the physical Worker Appreciation Wall reflect contributions across three primary groups, many based on the South Side and across Chicago, that have contributed to this historic project:
Construction workers : Individual workers who performed construction services on site and logged at least five full days at the Obama Presidential Center through November 2025.
Vendor staff : Representative individuals from large and small businesses contracted since the Foundation’s inception in 2014 whose work supported the Obama Presidential Center. This includes project management, design and fabrication, audiovisual, collections and curatorial work, art vendors, and consulting teams.
Staff : Current and former Obama Foundation employees who worked at least six months, including Board members, and full- and part-time employees.
Individuals and organizations employed after November 30, 2025 and prior to the Center’s grand opening—including staff, vendors, and construction workers—will be recognized through an online version of the Worker Appreciation Wall on the Foundation’s website.
Beyond the individuals named, the Worker Appreciation Wall also reflects approximately 400 businesses, from industry’s global leaders to mom-and-pop operations, that have contributed to building the Obama Presidential Center. The names featured on the Worker Appreciation Wall represent thousands of individuals affiliated with these businesses. While it is not possible to name every individual who has contributed to the project, each business was invited to name contributors who were key to the Center’s success. A few Chicago-based example businesses include:
Manual Cinema, an Emmy Award-winning performance collective, design studio and film/video production company that combines handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques and innovative sound and music to create immersive stories for stage and screen. Manual Cinema created two films for the Obama Presidential Center’s Museum.
The Chicago Botanic Garden, a 385-acre botanical garden, living museum, and conservation science center located in Glencoe, Illinois, north of Chicago, that is owned by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County and managed by the Chicago Horticultural Society. The Garden provided key expertise, alongside other arborists, to support the Obama Presidential Center’s development of climate-resilient, pesticide-free green spaces. Additionally, The Garden participated in the design and construction process of the Eleanor Roosevelt Fruit and Vegetable Garden.
Civic Projects Architecture LLC is a Chicago-based, minority and woman-owned hybrid architecture practice specializing in participatory design for cultural, commercial, and residential projects. They have partnered with Exhibit Designer Ralph Appelbaum Associates on the design of the OPC Museum permanent exhibition galleries.
About The Obama Foundation
The Obama Foundation is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire, empower, and connect people to change their world. That mission begins on the South Side of Chicago, where the Foundation is building the Obama Presidential Center. But that approach extends to all our work, whether it’s holding leadership training sessions in communities throughout the U.S., bringing local leaders together in countries around the world, working to support the global education of girls, or ensuring young men of color have pathways to opportunity. From every corner of the globe, our program participants are working together to address some of the biggest challenges of our time—from renewing our democratic institutions, protecting LGBTQ+ rights, fighting climate change, and so much more.
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Contact: Emily Bittner, press@obama.org