Our grantees are the bridge between us and the land, embodying a spiritual connection that reminds us of what colonization has tried to sever. They walk paths of transformation, deeply rooted in the soil, carrying ancestral knowledge that guides us toward liberated futures.
A Red Circle
A Red Circle is committed to providing sustained, focused attention to the racial equity issues that impact North St. Louis County. In doing so, we all can help build a stronger community. A major milestone this year was the ongoing renovation of the former Hathaway HillsShopping Center in Bellefontaine Neighbors. This space is being transformed into the North County Community Nexus, a hub for retail, social services, and community engagement. They have also started the Damu Smith Liberation Garden, which will serve as a space for food justice and community connection.In addition, our property adjacent to the North County Agricultural Education Center is being developed as the new home for their Community Wellness team, and they are thrilled to see this project take shape. "The Little Red Farmhouse," has completed it's full renovation. This space now hosts bread-making and canning classes, Good Food Fridays events, and offers supplies for rent to local farmers, supporting our agricultural community.
InPower Institute
InPower Institute is a community of culture bearers, healers, sages, seekers, ritualists, teachers, change makers, activists, spirit workers, earth allies, artists, revolutionaries and blooming humans working to advance wholeness and well-being for themselves and their peoples! Their many practices and paths are united by a shared purpose – to advance a more just and vibrant world through community healing and well-being initiatives that unleash people power.
Lewis Place Historical Preservation Inc
Lewis Place Historical Preservation is a non-profit community based housing development corporation, founded in 2000 to revitalize the Lewis Place neighborhood, preserving the history, the historic structures and the culture of this unique and predominately African American community. We are located in the central west corridor of the City of St. Louis, Missouri. Our boundaries are Newstead on the East, Delmar on the South, Walton of the West and Martin Luther King Drive on the north. They are building on a model of historic preservation to revitalize this urban community thereby increasing the number of safe decent affordable housing. Lewis Place Historical Preservation has designed programs and services to stabilize this community making this once again a great place to live, that welcomes diversity, creates and support opportunities for growth and for economic development.
Growing Food Growing People Inc
GFGP's mission is to grow food and people through healthy food accessibility and interaction with the soil. We believe that everyone deserves access to healthy food. The lack of healthy food consumption negatively impacts your quality of life. As a radical act of Social Justice, we are growing healthy food and sharing it with our neighbors. Sharing it is great, but, we also empower our community by showing them how to grow and providing the necessary tools. They know that if you change what you are eating, you can change the way you think, if we can get our community to change the way they are thinking, we can change the trajectory of our neighborhoods that are systematically impacted by the lack of healthy food accessibility.
GRO Health Center
Established in 2020, GRO Health Center is a Missouri-based nonprofit dedicated to improving community wellbeing through sustainability practices, health education, and economic opportunity programs. They partner with local communities to promote sustainable living, advance nutrition knowledge, and support economic development that benefits Missouri residents. They collaborate with local partners to create healthier environments where residents can thrive physically, economically, and ecologically.
UJIMA
UJIMA cultivates community through food justice, environmental stewardship, and youth empowerment. With the sowing of George Washington Carver farms in North City, they are contributing to access to quality food, green infrastructure, sustainable agriculture, education and employment. Their Sunflower Institute has graduated 12 teens who reported more positive feelings and connectedness to their support systems. Ujima delivered over 300 meals and cleaned up 10,000 pounds of waste in North St. Louis City.
Heru Urban Farming Garden
At Heru Urban Farming, their mission isn’t just about growing fruits and vegetables; it’s about sowing the seeds of empowerment and nourishing communities. They are your partners in revitalizing neighborhoods offering economic growth opportunities, and empowering individuals to thrive through food. Heru Urban Farming started in 2017 with a humble beginning: three lots totaling 10,612 sq ft. – impacting over 700,000 people across the metro St. Louis region which includes low-income households with limited access to grocery stores or farmers markets within a half-mile of their neighborhoods.
Rustic Roots Sanctuary
Rustic Roots Sanctuarys' vision is a strong local food hub. Through teaching sustainable agriculture and creating holistic health, wellness, and providing healing opportunities for individuals and communities, their goal is to create food equity and heal trauma through immersion in nature while simultaneously healing the planet. They offer spiritual events, classes, and opportunities that help balance mind, body, and spirit. They welcome teachings and teachers from a diversity of backgrounds and traditions who can share their wisdom through meditation, sound baths, yoga, healing circles, and mindfulness among others.
Mama Scraps Inc
Mama Scraps Inc is a healing project centered at the intersections of culture, spirituality, lineage, healing, and connection to Mama Earth. Aiding in the healing of black, brown, and indigenous folx by honoring ancestral and Indigenous wisdom. It is their understanding that in order to truly be free, healing needs to be at the center. In thought-partnership with their incubator home organization, InPower Institute, they define community healing as a holistic process that works to make human collectives and the people within them well by addressing the multitude of needs in community.
Tenants Transforming Greater St. Louis
Tenants Transforming Greater St. Louis (formerly Homes for All St. Louis (HFASTL) is a Black renter-led organization that catalyzes tenant associations and serves as an accountability mechanism for landlords to improve or maintain housing quality. Tenants Transforming Greater St. Louis campaigns for a more renter-friendly policy environment. They provide tenant leadership development through Know Your Rights and other political training. Additionally, we operate a hotline for renters available 7-days a week for resources and lease interpretation.
Parents United for Change
COFI’s mission is to build the power and voice of parents, primarily mothers and grandmothers from Black and Brown communities, to shape the public decisions that affect their lives and the lives of their families. We envision a world with racial, economic, and educational justice where all children and families have an equal opportunity to succeed in life. COFI has trained and organized thousands of parents in some of the toughest neighborhoods anywhere. "A proven, family-focused organizing model for how people who are outside the centers of power become leaders, build organizations, and win."
St. Louis Association of Community Organization
The St. Louis Association of Community Organizations, commonly known as SLACO by its friends, has been addressing a broad range of issues related to strengthening neighborhoods throughout its 45-year history. SLACO was established in the late 1970’s and incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in 1978. SLACO is a coalition of neighborhood associations in the metropolitan area. Each neighborhood group addresses the needs and concerns of its residents. While the depth and severity of problems facing neighborhoods vary, many challenges are shared by almost all of our neighborhoods. Since 2014, SLACO has embraced the Forward Through Ferguson report. As a connecting group for neighborhoods all over the region, we are positioned to drive the conversation on community policing, racial equity, and providing a real partner for change.
Solidarity Economy St. Louis
Solidarity Economy St. Louis is a network of groups and individuals striving to build and grow a solidarity economy; that is an economy that embodies the values of justice, sustainability, self-determination, and cooperation while resisting the notion of every person for themselves. Their ultimate aim is economic, spiritual, and cultural liberation for all living beings. To achieve this they create just and sustainable systems for people to meet their basic material needs, resist exploitation by divesting from and directly challenging systems of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy and transforming relationships inter- and intrapersonal and with the planet. Solidarity Economy programs include STL Mutual Aid, Black-owned farm tours, co-op cohort, seed swaps, and skill shares.
UJIMA
UJIMA cultivates community through food justice, environmental stewardship, and youth empowerment. With the sowing of George Washington Carver farms in North City, they are contributing to access to quality food, green infrastructure, sustainable agriculture, education and employment. Their Sunflower Institute has graduated 12 teens who reported more positive feelings and connectedness to their support systems. Ujima delivered over 300 meals and cleaned up 10,000 pounds of waste in North St. Louis City.
Dutchtown South Community Corporation
Dutchtown South Community Corporation advances neighborhood vitality using lenses of racial/socio-economic equity and environmental justice by empowering community members and advancing community partnerships, to ensure the availability of affordable housing and equitable real estate development. DSCC envisions a South St. Louis as a collection of vibrant and diverse neighborhoods equitably thriving and guided by residents. They have been the catalyst for neighborhood planning and the convener for neighborhood wide efforts.
Equity Legal Service
Equity Legal Services provides free legal services and opportunities for organizing for and with Centreville residents. In the fall of 2018, Equity Legal Services, Inc. and the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council partnered to hold meetings with Centreville residents who experienced sewage overflows in their bathtubs, kitchen sinks, basements, and yards, as well as ongoing stormwater flooding. In October 2019, they partnered with Urban League to create a hub for monthly distribution for Centreville residents. In May 2021, a Water Box (safe filtered water) was installed in the community to serve Centreville, Alorton, Cahokia, and East St. Louis. In 2020, Equity Legal Services filed ASPIRATIONS litigation on behalf of two Centreville residents to request relief from the ongoing stormwater flooding and sewage overflows that have been occurring for decades. In 2021, they filed litigation on behalf of 27 Centreville residents requesting relief and monetary compensation for damages for decades of financial loss due to stormwater flooding and sewage overflows. With the collective efforts of the community, staff, and community partners, they advocated canal clearings, brought agency and organization stakeholders to the table to be accountable to the community, and dedicated resources to determine how to mitigate stormwater flooding in the area.
Metropolitan Congregations United
Metropolitan Congregations United is committed to acting powerfully in the public arena to transform congregations and communities. They do this by developing leaders who move their congregations, organizations, and communities to change public policy. This is demonstrated in their voter engagement strategies, campaign efforts to end mass incarceration by organizing formerly incarcerated individuals, and in recent years the hosting of air quality monitors.
Great Rivers Environmental Law Center
Great Rivers Environmental Law Center is Missouri’s first and only public interest law firm focused on the environment and public health. They provide free legal services to Missouri and Southern Illinois individuals and organizations to safeguard the environment by enforcing environmental laws around air, water pollution and the preservation of wetlands, endangered species, open space and floodplains. Great Rivers is responsible for writing Missouri’s original net metering bill and Missouri’s Renewable Energy Standard. When Empire District Electric sneaked a bill through the legislature to exempt themselves from paying rebates, they took them [Empire] to the Missouri Supreme Court and got the law struck down.
WePower
WePower envisions a future where systems are accountable to powerful communities that have been historically oppressed. They do this by investing in BIPOC entrepreneurs and providing capacity building to residents through their Power Building Academy and Chisolm’s Chair–training for women going into the public sector.
Rustic Roots Sanctuary
Rustic Roots Sanctuary in St. Louis is a place where the spirit of nature meets the warmth of community. Nestled in the heart of this vibrant city, Rustic Roots offers a unique and inviting haven for those who appreciate the beauty of the outdoors and the sense of belonging that comes with it. Their mission is to reconnect individuals with the natural world, fostering a deep appreciation for sustainable living and the importance of preserving our environment. Whether exploring their eco-friendly initiatives, participating in hands-on workshops, or savoring locally-sourced, farm-to-table cuisine, Rustic Roots in St. Louis is a gateway to a harmonious blend of rustic charm and urban vitality.
A Red Circle
A Red Circle promotes community betterment in North St. Louis County, through a racial equity lens. They are committed to providing sustained focused attention to the racial equity issues that impact North St. Louis County to lead to greater health and economic outcomes. Through community programming they empower through arts and creativity, provide educational opportunities for youth and maintain health and financial wellness initiatives.
United People’s Market
United People’s Market is a St. Louis grassroots organization whose mission is to uplift and empower our neighborhoods through healthy food, human connection, and compassionate advocacy.