So the TL;DR is that your investment in WEPOWER is an investment in the future of our region: click here to give today!

St. Louisans know what it feels like to win together: the electric rush of a Stanley Cup victory, the pride of eleven Cardinals World Series wins, CITY SC’s historic first season, and the unmatched energy of the Battlehawks filling the Dome. It rings out in the cheers and roars of the lively crowds all across the city. Even in our most complicated sports moments, we carry a long tradition of standing together, staying loyal, and believing in something bigger than ourselves.

The spirit to win lives deep within us. Yet, the collective sense of possibility that the championship is ours to claim together is too often missing when it matters most – creating a region where we all thrive and guaranteeing that our children inherit a better St. Louis.

How do we disrupt our pattern of loss and grow a sense of solidarity outside of the stadiums that have historically been home to our victories? Too often, we accept the status quo as inevitable and our future as predetermined, rather than something we shape together with our choices and actions. Circumstances within and outside of our control in the past five years have normalized this loss: 30,000 residents across the city and county between 2020 and 2024, over 3,500 lives due to the pandemic, and the damage of more than 5,000 buildings as a result of the May tornado, along with the displacement of countless families.

We can tell a new story about our region – one where we win big together beyond the Enterprise Center, Busch Stadium, Energizer Park, and the Dome. But, first, we must find common ground on a shared vision of winning, one that is deeply and widely felt across every zip code and municipality, every race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, across every political party, gender, and sexual orientation. What is the win that we can all celebrate and benefit from?

Our ultimate victory is not simply a landmark or a set of physical structures, nor is it something a single leader can deliver for us. It’s in our people - plural. St. Louis is made up of the people who call this place home, and our vision should reflect that. As the Gateway to the West, this is my vision for a championship we all can celebrate:

St. Louis becomes the Gateway for all families who call our region home to access educational opportunities that catalyze them to live their best possible lives, build wealth, and prosper. Our region will be celebrated for abandoning its fierce protection of divides and fragmentation and will emerge united as one St. Louis. We will become a blueprint for every other region in the country because the care we provide for one another as fellow St. Louisans is as world-class as the championships we’ve won and will continue to win as a premier city of sports.

There can be a future where we are all players on the same team. A future where, rather than opposing each other, we work together to overcome our region’s toxic instinct to protect the ways things have always been. We unite to oppose our region’s wicked and multi-century-old love affair with systemic racism. And together, we defeat our region’s geographic design that allows mass exodus westward in the illusion that it’s possible to escape poverty, crime, and failing school systems. Because what we keep failing to realize is that, as teammates, when one loses, we all lose.

Achieving a thriving St. Louis is a team sport, and I’m so tired of losing. We’re overdue for a win. More importantly, we owe it to our children to pass on to them a region with a winning record. 

That is the essence of WEPOWER’s mission. We are unwavering in our pursuit of achieving wins for the WE - the collective. Every year, we take a step back and ask ourselves: how do we achieve a systemic level victory that benefits the most St. Louisans possible, especially a win for and with those on the margins? That question has led us to pursue two wins that will be transformative for our region:

• Achieving universal access to child care so every family with a child aged five or younger has a free quality seat, and the workforce that cares for children is paid a living wage with benefits.
• Closing the wealth gap so more families move from surviving to thriving and have resources and assets to pass on from one generation to the next.

These wins matter. More than 20,000 young children in our region lack access to child care—a gap that affects school readiness, public safety, and whether parents can work. And with 21% of households holding zero or negative wealth, too many families are stuck. Imagine what becomes possible when families have the resources to thrive. WEPOWER imagines a future where St. Louis is a place people choose to stay and move to because of the ways we care for one another through child care and wealth-building opportunities for all.

As we work toward these two championship-level wins, here are some of our highlights from 2024–2025:

• We trained approximately 100 new child care and economic justice leaders who committed over 5,000 hours to build their skills in grassroots organizing, running for public office, and policy design.
• We activated hundreds of champions to write letters to the Board of Aldermen, testify at City Hall, and raise their voices in advocating for Rams dollars to fund child care, ultimately influencing the creation of legislation that earmarked $34 million to subsidize the cost of care for city workers.
• We provided coaching, connections, and approximately $300,000 in grants and loans to more than 50 underrepresented St. Louis-based entrepreneurs.
• We released The New STL Economy PLAYBOOK: Planting + Growing Our Collective Wealth after a year-and-a-half of research, 3,000 hours of community design, over 1,000 stakeholder engagements, and support from 38 subject matter experts. The Playbook offers a vision and roadmap for transforming St. Louis’ local economy in response to the wealth crisis.

Plays like these () lead to big wins, and this is how I know victory is possible. In 2026, we have even bolder ambitions, including making progress towards a $22 million win in sustainable public funding for child care in St. Louis City. We will deepen our support for the biz accelerator alumni and launch a new initiative to help employees transition into owners of thriving businesses as our region and country face the biggest wealth transfer in our history.

Early childhood providers like Ms. Tina and the late Ms. Adrienne kept their doors open for years without the resources or recognition they deserve(d). Families depend on them, and our region depends on those families being able to work. Entrepreneurs like Javia, owner of Passport Cocktail Bar and a graduate of our accelerator, are working every day to build stable, job-creating businesses that strengthen our economy. Their wins are our region’s wins.

I invite you to join us not from the sidelines, but as teammates in building a region where every child, every worker, and every family can thrive. When we invest together, we win together. Let’s make 2026 a year of bold steps, lasting progress, and collective victories for our entire region.

In 2025, we showed you what the community can do. Please give generously and help fund our bigger and bolder plans for 2026. Join our Moment to Movement Monthly Giving Community with any gift of $10 to $250 per month, or make a one-time contribution of $250, $500, $1,000, $2,500, $5,000, or more.