The St. Louis Regional Business Council closed its Reinvest North County Fund with a public event at Centene’s Ferguson Service Center on Wednesday, November 16.
Since the fund was opened by the RBC less than a week after the Ferguson unrest sparked by the police killing of Michael Brown Jr. on August 9, 2014, nearly $1 million was raised through 43 donors and granted to 55 small businesses and four school districts in North County. Of the $943,078 distributed, about two-thirds of it ($639,299) went to the public schools.
North County Inc. helped to distribute the grants with the input of a 15-member allocations committee. The Greater Saint Louis Community Foundation provided administrative support. Al Mitchell, president of the Monsanto Fund and a member of the allocations committee, said “100 percent” of the money collected was distributed, with “zero administrative costs.”
Joshura and Lisa Davis, owners of Best Insurance, 9191 W. Florissant Ave., said the grant they received from the Reinvest North County Fund was “the very first sign of hope” after their shop was torched during a night of arson in Ferguson.
“I’ve been a business owner on the West Florissant corridor for 25 years,” Joshura Davis said. “This is our only income. I said to my wife, ‘Baby, we’ve got to stay here.’”
He said the Reinvest North County Fund grant they received in the first round of funding “helped us to keep our doors open.”
Charles J. Pearson, superintendent of schools for the Normandy Schools Collaborative, made remarks on behalf of the four districts that received funding, which also included Ferguson-Florissant, Jennings and Riverview Gardens.
“Those funds came at a critical time,” Pearson said. He listed a range of things his district did with the grants: fund a kindergarten readiness camp, science materials, instruction in coding, a literacy initiative and back-to-school backpacks.
Other districts used their grant funds for food pantries, clothing, transportation, robotics and college preparation. Students from Jennings High School’s College Prep Academy attended the event wearing distinctive blazers. Yolonda Fountain Henderson, a Jennings school board member, pointed out that the blazers were purchased with Reinvest North County funds.
Pearson introduced the concept of “ally,” as defined by Glenn Singleton, who developed Beyond Diversity, a seminar aimed at helping administrators, teachers, students, parents and community stakeholders identify and examine the intersection of race and schooling.
“The RBC was an ally for us,” Pearson said.
The fund was the brainchild of Kathy Osborn, executive director of the RBC, which is a consortium of presidents and chief executive officers of mid- to large-sized companies in St. Louis.
“The mantra of the RBC is ‘act, act quickly and focus on results,’” Osborn said. “We wanted to give where it would be most effective, and we decided that was small businesses and schools.”
In closing the fund after nearly a million dollars in small grants, Osborn was under no illusion that the region’s needs have been met. “Businesses are still struggling,” she said. “But I see optimism, tenacity and the will to serve the community.”
Joshura Davis said that some of their friends were not as fortunate as Best Insurance and had to shutter their businesses.
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do,” Davis said. “You drive down West Florissant from Chambers to Lucas and Hunt, and it’s pretty desolate.”
At the same time, he expressed fears that future development – perhaps through the proposed Great Streets Master Plan – could be of a scale where small businesses like theirs could not afford to stay.
“When the West Florissant corridor grows, we do not want to be pushed out,” Davis said. “When we begin to rebuild, we do not want to go anywhere. Keep us in your thoughts, prayers and plans.”
