Cycle 2 Grantees

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.

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.

*With Fiscal Sponsorship from Before Ferguson Beyond Ferguson

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. 

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. 

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. 

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 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.

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. 

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 and EC will arrange to use local community gardens /green spaces whenever possible.

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, and providing them with all of the information and resources they will need to properly manage a home and eliminate rates of evictions. 

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. 

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 offer a weekly drop-in center for sex workers at The T— a health education and resource center.

*With Fiscal Sponsorship from Missouri Jobs with Justice

“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. 

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. 

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.

The St. Louis Queer Plus Support Helpline (SQSH) offers 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.

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 learn how to grow a food business from the ground up while providing for the community.

Unleashing Potential’s School Aged Services program represents an expansion of its Building Resilient Families Program (BRF). 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.

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 Father’s Day 2022.

*With Fiscal Sponsorship from Missouri Jobs with Justice

WerQfest’s flagship project 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+.

*With Fiscal Sponsorship from Missouri Jobs with Justice