The Gephardt Institute awarded $11,100, through the St. Louis Impact Fund, to nine St. Louis Fellows and Civic Scholars to support their goals to make deeper impacts in the community-engaged work they began last summer.
These Partnership Extension Grants help students extend their time with the organizations they partnered with during the summer to continue making tangible change in the region.
“For Gephardt, we see this as a ‘win-win’ because St. Louis Fellows and Civic Scholars receive funding for their continued working hours, while our community partners receive continued increased capacity to advance their mission-critical work in the St. Louis region,” said Sarah Nash, Community Engagement Manager at the Gephardt Institute.
“For many of our grantees, they’re able to see the projects or events that they contributed to and helped plan for during their summer internships come to fruition during the fall, which is truly a gift to both the students and the community partner organizations.”
Grace Archer was one of this year’s grantees. Throughout her summer as a St. Louis Fellow she worked with the Ollie Hinkle Heart Foundation, an organization is committed to addressing the unmet needs of families while transforming the future of pediatric heart care.
As a Fellow, Archer helped to facilitate focus groups for families in the St. Louis community who have been impacted by pediatric congenital heart disease. These groups generated conversation within the community regarding the most inclusive and digestible language to use when moving forward with a large-scale awareness campaign.
“I wanted to be a part of the Ollie Hinkle Heart Foundation because of the important work they do to support the health and wellbeing of patients and families in St. Louis and beyond,” said Archer. “I think there is a huge gap between what healthcare systems can provide and what patients as entire human beings really need, and I was inspired by all of the ways that the Foundation works to support families outside of the hospital.”
Over the summer, Archer worked toward the goal of hosting a national Heart Family Movie Night, which provides a free night of fun for heart patients and families across the country and, in doing so, spreads information and awareness about congenital heart disease.
The Partnership Extension Grant allowed her to extend this work into the 2024 Fall semester.
“It’s been really rewarding to get to be a part of this process since the very beginning all the way through the St. Louis focus groups,” said Archer. “I’m really excited to see it ramp up knowledge about congenital heart disease in the public eye.”
“When I think about the nine Partnership Extension Grants that we awarded this year, I am struck by the very different kinds of community work that our students were able to meaningfully contribute to across the region,” said Nash.
“All the Civic Scholars and St. Louis Fellows that received Partnership Extensions Grants this year were able to build upon their summer experiences of both transforming, and being transformed by, St. Louis.”
The complete list of current St. Louis Impact Fund Extension Grants:
- SaMiya Carroll ‘25,Dutchtown South Community Corporation
- Carroll, a Goldman Fellow, worked on social media management, curating a plan which included research on other organizations, posting methods. and a content calendar. She lent a hand on waste management projects. Throughout both responsibilities, she advocated for quality sidewalks, better waste management, and staying engaged with the community online. With the Partnership Extension Grant, Carroll was able to analyze the data they collected in the summer on walkability. Her analysis included research on the process of implementing audit data such as reaching out to the appropriate agencies and creating a sustainable plan for maintenance.
- Jachin Choi ‘26, St. Louis Mosaic Project
- As a Goldman Fellow, Choi focused on contributing to the immigrant community and fostering community awareness. As part of this, he updated and managed the event details on the Mosaic Project website to ensure accurate and timely communication. He also assisted with logistical support for event execution; fostered seamless collaboration among team members and partners; and drafted press releases for Mosaic Ambassador Organizations. Choi contributed to the St. Louis Mosaic Project’s Growing Global Initiative, designing promotional materials such as flyers.
- Natalia León Díaz ‘26, Missouri Voter Protection Coalition
- Díaz, a Democracy Fellow, spent her summer coordinating efforts to improve voting access for detained individuals; conducted voter registration in underserved communities; and analyzed Election Protection data following the Aug. 6 Election. She also developed voter rights materials and led voter educationinitiatives, including a summer-long program with St. Louis organizations to commemorate Freedom Summer through festivals in underserved communities. Díaz contributed to digital outreach by launching social media pages and starting the website renovation. Through advocacy, legislation, communications, and education, Díaz saw many specialized experts build relationships based on respect and come together to build an inclusive democracy.
- Alan Knight ‘27, Show Me Integrity
- Knight, a Democracy Fellow, built on his summer work throughout the fall by maintaining the MOVote.orgwebsite for the November federal election, ensuring that the site was updated with the latest voting information and fixing any issues on the site. Knight monitored MOVote.org submissions to ensure that voters would be notified if an error was detected with their request and formalized the brand for the Respect Voters Coalition by creating merchandise designs and editing Canva resources. Additionally, Knight finalized the design and formatting of the Honest Elections Report that was released in late November.
- Mia Phutrakul ‘25, EarthDance Organic Farm School
- Phutrakul, a Cairn Fellow in the Goldman Fellows cohort, worked throughout the fall semester to build on their summer work, in which they were responsible for conducting data collection and organization; doing data input for accounting; and supporting farmers with assistance weeding, trellising, watering, and harvesting crops. They also washed and packaged produce. In taking on these tasks, Phutrakul helped to make the farmers’ lives easier by providing a helping hand that was already familiar with the everyday tasks and responsibilities at the farm, thus making it easier to provide healthy and nutritious vegetables for the St. Louis community.
- Brodhi Douglas Eugene Ramirez ‘27, ArchCity Defenders
- As a St. Louis Fellow, Ramirez assisted legal clients regularly and was responsible for walking them through their legal journey. He assisted with additional expungement application processing, worked on expungement client updating, and legal file management. The latter of these responsibilities built on a project that ArchCity Defenders has been working on to organize and correctly file all of their cases since 2013. Ramirez called clients to gather more information about what they wanted expunged, got details about their records, set up meetings with attorneys, worked with clients to get background checks, and updated them on their cases.
- Jayda Smith ‘25, Cornerstone Community Development Corporation
- Smith, a Lois and Bert Neighbour Civic Scholar, was responsible for supporting Cornerstone CDC in any logistical ways they need to continue to succeed and strive. She analyzed data and metrics, translating Cornerstone CDC’s hard work into the numbers necessary appeal to funders. Smith additionally distributed assessments, analyzed data, worked with graphic artists for stakeholders, assisted with storytelling qualitative support, and was responsible for weekly communications with fellows in the program. The Partnership Extension Grant allowed her to finish the evaluations they started and support the organization’s programming.
- Zachary Trabitz ‘26, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
- Trabitz, a Losos Fellow in the Goldman Fellows cohort, developed tours and spearheaded interpretive work for the Fall/Winter 2024 exhibition season. He helped the Museum with creative interpretive copy creation, assisted with wall text creation, and developed gallery guides. These guides offered biographies, reference materials, and any additional supplemental material in relation to the exhibited artists. Trabitz was also integral for educational audio tours; he interviewed a selection of student artists to get more information on their work and edited the content. He also helped with training for the visitor experience department gallery.
- Elena Wierich ‘26, Show Me Integrity
- As a Democracy Fellow in the St. Louis Fellows Program, Wierich designed and printed literature to hand out at Town Halls around St. Louis City and presented at Town Halls across various Wards to educate voters about the three City Charter changes on the November ballot. She designed and printed informational literature to hand out at the polls with information about each Charter amendment and the importance of voting on local issues. To further Show Me Integrity’s mission, Wierich continued to produce, write, and edit the podcast “Behind the Ballot,” which teaches people about democracy reform at a local level.
The St. Louis Impact Fund is supported by the Office of the Provost and generous donations to the Gephardt Institute. Since 2008, the Gephardt Institute has distributed over $320,000 in grants through the St. Louis Impact Fund and former Civic Engagement Fund, to advance student civic engagement and St. Louis regional priorities. If you would like to make a gift to support the St. Louis Impact Fund, please click here or contact Stephanie Kurtzman, Executive Director of the Gephardt Institute, at GephardtAdvancement@wustl.edu.