Photo by Whitney Curtis
Rasheen Aldridge
How’s the recently passed minimum wage increase going to affect some St. Louisans struggling to make ends meet? “It is definitely a good start for working families and other friends I know who are asking themselves, ‘Is it going to be rent or food, or is it going to be electricity?’” says Rasheen Aldridge, Fifth Ward Democratic committeeman (one of the youngest ever elected, at age 22) and one of the faces on Time’s recent “Guns in America” cover. A former Ferguson Commission member and director of Young Activists United STL, Aldridge is now an organizer for the Missouri Democratic Party. Today, his focus has shifted to raising wages for hourly workers through the organization #Fightfor15. Still, he’d like the increase to go into effect faster. “I would love for [the minimum wage] to be $15,” he says. “It’s going to be $12 by 2023.” He’s now working to get an issue on the 2020 ballot preventing St. Louis from cutting the number of wards and aldermen in half.
Photo by Whitney Curtis
Teka Childress
Teka Childress has committed herself to advocating for homeless St. Louisans. More than a decade ago, she saw a homeless man on the street on a cold winter night. She asked the police to check on him—and the next morning she learned that he’d died. It spurred Childress to found St. Louis Winter Outreach, which strives to help unhoused St. Louisans survive the winter. “I’ve been amazed at both the number of people needing help and also the tremendous desire on so many people’s part to reach out to their neighbors and make sure they’re not left behind,” she says. Volunteers use their own cars to transport homeless individuals to one of the five Assisi Houses, single-sex residential facilities. The newest house opened in November. When no vacancies are available, volunteers offer blankets, hats, and gloves. Last September, more than 200 people attended the inaugural St. Louis Housing Summit, organized by Childress, and she continues to build on that momentum.
Photo by Whitney Curtis
Michael Milton
The life of a person accused of a crime who’s jailed and awaiting trial but can’t pay bail can start to spiral downward: missed days at work, inability to provide or arrange childcare, and, sometimes, the threat of physical violence. Michael Milton is St. Louis’ site manager for The Bail Project, which seeks to address mass incarceration by paying bail for low-income Americans who can’t otherwise afford it. The organization’s goal is to help 160,000 people. The St. Louis team, led by Milton, has been able to assist more than 1,000. “Cash bail is a hot topic right now, not just in our city but across the country,” says Milton, who’s also a coordinator of the #BeyondJail campaign with Action St. Louis. “A lot of people are trying to figure out how to end the injustice of the current system, where the presumption of innocence is basically up for sale, and what should replace it. Our organization is demonstrating what the alternative could look like. We’re creating a program of community-based release with effective court notifications and referrals to voluntary social services. Our success shows that this works. Not only is this more equitable, it's also better for public safety, as research shows.” For Milton, it’s also personal: “I've see the devastating impact of pretrial detention first-hand in my community,” he says. “I see our work as a temporary tool to alleviate suffering while we work for meaningful and long-lasting bail reform.”
Correction: St. Louis Magazine has updated this story to accurately reflect the number of incarcerated people The Bail Project has helped.
Photo by Whitney Curtis
Sara John
Sara John’s involvement with immigrant communities started with one family. “I met a family who had emigrated from Mexico and couldn’t believe the reality of my neighbors,” she says. “Here was this family who I came to know and respect and admire, and their lived experience was so different than mine for something that seemed so inconsequential.” For her, it’s always been about faith and values. “When many of our teachings—I’m born and raised a Catholic—talk about how we’re all created equal, and the image of God or image of divinity within us, and that’s not what you see in the way neighbors are treated, that causes a lot of questions,” she says. Today, she’s the executive director and program coordinator for the St. Louis Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America, which seeks to end racial profiling of immigrants in the city. The group—which recently started preparing volunteers to walk with immigrants to appointments with immigration authorities—has, John says, “trained over 200 people and has more than 150 committed and serving in these capacities. We walked with immigrant neighbors at more than 50 check-ins and appointments—and that need continues to grow.”
Photo by Whitney Curtis
Jaimie Hileman
Five years ago, Jaimie Hileman left a 24-year career in the corporate world to work in diversity education and training. In 2017, she founded Trans Education Service, through which she delivers a variety of cultural competency presentations, trainings, exercises, and consulting to businesses, educational providers, medical organizations, and faith groups. Her mission: to create more accepting, knowledgeable workplaces. Regardless of where organizations are coming from, Hileman wants to educate them: “I work with a lot of people who don’t agree with equality for LGBTQ people at all, and that’s OK. Those are important spaces for me to be in with the work I do, because I can do the most good.”
Photo by Whitney Curtis
Felicia Shaw
Felicia Shaw grew up in St. Louis but spent most of her career working in the nonprofit arts sector in California. She returned in 2015 to become executive director of the Regional Arts Commission. For the past year and a half, the organization’s been developing a new vision for the arts, detailed in a public report called Arts &, released last fall. “This report shepherds in what I hope will be a new era for arts and culture for the region, repositioning the arts as a tool, a vehicle for making St. Louis a new place,” she says. Shaw emphasizes the role that art can play as an agent for social change. Many artists work to bring quality arts education to local school systems and revitalize public spaces, she says, especially in blighted areas. “We want the arts community to continue to provide high-quality performances and exhibitions in the traditional sense but also to roll up its sleeves and really start addressing the areas where we can do better,” Shaw says. “How can we make St. Louis a better place to live in all aspects of our society?”
