Racial Healing and Justice Fund – 2nd Cycle Grantees

About the Project:

The African People’s Education & Defense Fund (APEDF)’s African Women’s Health Program is designed to alleviate the trauma women and children face in Black communities due to a lack of access to, and control over healthcare. The program addresses the mental and physical health of girls’ and women’s health care, and provides prenatal, birthing, and post-natal care, drawing from traditional, collective approaches to health care with roots that go back to Africa. 

https://apedf.org/

_{Photo via: The African People’s Education & Defense Fund}

About the Project:

ASK Films third and newest film project will tell the story of families in the 63106 ZIP code over the course of the pandemic, shedding light on issues of systemic and racial inequities.

_{Photo via: ASK Films}

_{*With Fiscal Sponsorship from Before Ferguson Beyond Ferguson}

About the Project:

ACD’s Community Collaborations Pillar (CCP) seeks to capitalize on the momentum and relationships that they’ve built with their partners over the past several years, by collaborating with community partners around shared values and supporting the building of grassroots power. This project is aimed at propelling a people-powered movement to transform public institutions, and to create conditions of wellbeing in marginalized communities. 

https://www.archcitydefenders.org

_{Photo via: Arch City Defenders Inc.}

About the Project:

The STEM Saturday Academy exploratory learning program is centered on exposure to career pathways, and triggering increased curiosity through deliberate education access and opportunity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in the minds of Black girls in every community. This includes walking students through the scientific method, design engineering process, data science processes, and other design thinking frameworks as it relates to a variety of integrated STEM careers.

https://bgdstem.com

_{Photo via: Black Girls Do STEM}

About the Project:

CUP will engage the healing and transformative power of story and artistic

expression by 1) creating “SELF”, a documentary film and community-voice case study on the issue of self-sufficiency and the barriers to it, and 2) designing a large mural in East St. Louis that captures the community voice as

expressed in the filming of SELF. 

https://catholicurbanprograms.org

_{Photo via: Catholic Urban Programs}

About the Project:

The Community’s Reach’s Black Motherhood Village was created to provide new and expecting mothers with mental, emotional, social, and parenting support through free or low- cost services provided by the Community Reach and partnered community members. The program seeks to decrease stigma

surrounding healthcare, increase visibility of doula services and black mental health providers, and support black maternal mental health.

https://www.thecommunityreach.org

_{Photo via: The Community Reach}

About the Project:

The Cornerstone Corporation is a West End Christian Community Development Corporation (CDC), who will deepen its impact and involvement in the West End neighborhood of St. Louis over the next 10 years by annually providing high quality affordable housing for 50 families, and impacting 1,500 West End residents through economic empowerment initiatives, whole-person support services, and championing choice and dignity.

http://www.cornerstonestl.org

_{Photo via: West End Plan}

About the Project:

Creative Reaction Lab’s Community Design Apprenticeship Program (CDAP) recruits formerly incarcerated and criminal justice system impacted Black and Latinx youth, and trains them as apprentices to become equity-centered

civic leaders in the greater St. Louis community. Through prioritizing individual and community healing, engagement as revolutionary leaders, and providing the social and economic resources for successful reentry, CDAP is building a sustainable community engagement model, decreasing recidivism rates, and designing healthy and racially equitable communities.

https://www.creativereactionlab.com

_{Photo via: Creative Reaction Lab}

About the Project:

In connection with their Cure Violence (CV) program, Employment Connection seeks to pilot a new Healing Table Talk Project that will bring behavioral health services into communities as place-based healing sessions for residents. CV teams will solicit input from residents during their regular neighborhood canvassing, which will determine the parameters of the Healing Table talks. EC will arrange to use local community gardens /green spaces whenever possible, to capitalize on the healing properties of nature.

https://www.employmentstl.org

_{Photo via: Employment Connection}

About the Project:

To help ensure that ensure that citizens are provided with the proper education and information that will allow them to be successful in their neighborhoods and help defeat the racial gap in housing equity, Happy Home Foundation’s Tenant Education Program is geared specifically towards the tenant (in particular tenants from marginalized backgrounds), and providing them with all of the information and resources they will need to properly manage a home and eliminate rates of evictions. 

https://www.alexdakota.com

_{Photo via: Kindle Media on Pexels}

About the Project:

Haven of Grace’s “Whole Mind – Whole Future” Initiative will help to layer the organization’s mental health supports throughout their houseless/impoverished person care programs, with particular attention to prenatal care for their clients who are young Black women, as well as the needs of their staff. 

https://havenofgracestl.org

_{Photo via: Haven of Grace}

About the Project:

Mo Ho Justice is a sex worker advocacy coalition working to shape policy, amplify the voices of sex workers, and remove stigma by ending the criminalization and incarceration of sex workers, and make Missouri a safe place for trans folks and sex workers to exist. They will use their RH+JF award to fund the resources needed to improve the health and wellness of sex workers in the greater St. Louis area by offering a weekly drop-in center for sex workers of all types at The T— a health education and resource center in the East Loop of Delmar Blvd.

https://mohojustice.com

_{Photo via: Mo Ho Justice}

_{With Fiscal Sponsorship from Faith for Justice}

About the project:

“This Is My Story” is a project that will continue Missouri Faith Voices’ work in decentering trauma and curating spaces that foster healing and hope. With two planned quarters of deep listening campaigns focused on the stories of families impacted by gun violence and/or COVID-19, the project will demonstrate the power in telling one’s own story and centering the journey to healing through the trauma of being Black in urban America. 

http://www.missourifaithvoices.org

_{Photo via: Missouri Faith Voices}

About the project:

Park Central Development will enhance resident power by and improve quality of life through the Golden Access. This program is a grassroots collaboration with local neighborhood organizations and stakeholders to deliver critical product and educational resources that give holistic alternatives to mothers, babies and single fathers with newborns, utilizing the organization’s community resource counseling program as a vehicle. The program provides focused supportive services to Black and Brown mothers who must contend with a lack of traditional pediatric support, and face displacement in redeveloping and gentrifying communities. 

https://parkcentraldevelopment.org

_{Photo via: Park Central Development}

About the project:

Using RH+JF funding, the Black Rep will increase the capacity of its Company Professional Fellowship program. This 45-year old program continues to provide critical support and leadership opportunities for recent college graduates and young theatre professionals making the transition from academia to a career in the arts. 

https://www.theblackrep.org

_{Photo via: The St. Louis Black Repertory Company Inc.}

About the project:

The St. Louis Queer Plus Support Helpline (SQSH) aims to increase their capacity to strengthen the St. Louis QTPOC (queer and trans people of color) community by providing empathetic listening, connections to identity-affirming resources, and advocacy services. Their services include offering free peer Helpline counseling, free virtual peer counseling drop-in clinics during peak stress seasons at least once a year, and expanding opportunities for QTPOC members to express grief and process trauma—especially when Black trans women are murdered—and more.

https://www.thesqsh.org

_{Photo via: St. Louis Queer Plus Support Helpline}

About the project:

Ujima is a non- profit pay-what-you-can service provider that provides equitable access to food, education, and employment. In 2021, Ujima will launch Project Salsa, an urban agriculture apprenticeship program that will teach entrepreneurship to under-served teens in St. Louis. Participants will grow, make, and sell salsa—learning how to grow a food business from the ground up while providing for the community.

www.ujimastl.org

_{Photo via: Ujima}

About the project:

Unleashing Potential’s School Aged Services program represents an expansion of its Building Resilient Families Program (BRF), which was created to intentionally provide educational workshops to families in the St. Louis region, including information on community resources for advocacy, health and wellness, and supportive content to bridge relationships between schools and families. These family support services help children and caregivers relieve stress, learn effective parenting strategies and build protective factors that will improve their capacity to exit generational poverty.

https://upstl.org

_{Photo via: Unleashing Potential}

About the project:

Visual Movements LLC seeks to uplift the real life narratives of Black and Brown people through their upcoming documentary entitled ” I Am A Man”. The film will shine a light on the unique struggles that Black men have been forced to grapple with during the pandemic, and under current criminal justice systems. The production house will engage Black and Brown creatives to complete this project, with a target release date of Fathers Day 2022.

https://www.visualmovements.com

_{Photo via: Visual Movements LLC}

_{*With Fiscal Sponsorship from Missouri Jobs with Justice}

About the project:

WerQfest uses the power of arts and entertainment to create safe spaces for and amplify artists, organizations and voices within the Black queer community through a curated series of programming. Their flagship project, WerQfest, is a cultural festival celebrating the Black, queer, trans & non-binary community, and features performances by St. Louis Black queer artists, and award presentations for individuals and organizations committmend to Black LGBTQ+ service. Proceeds raised from WerQfest benefit an organization or cause working in St. Louis to provide resources for underserved and Black communities, especially LGBTQ+.

https://www.werqfest.com

_{Photo via: WerQfest}

_{*With Fiscal Sponsorship from Missouri Jobs with Justice}