Let’s Pick the City UP!!

Catch Story Stitchers SAFE! Team!!

We’ll be at O’Fallon Park with the OVP Kickback all day!

Saturday, July 15, 2023

Event Time: 2:00-6:00 PM

Story Stitchers’ SAFE! Team will perform at 2:45  and 4:45!

It’s FREE! 

Food, basketball, games, give aways, and fun!

Acknowledgements

Saint Louis Story Stitchers youth programs and SAFE! Team appearances at the OVP Kickback is supported in part by the City of St. Louis Department of Public Safety and the Office of Violence Prevention. The Story Stitchers’ SAFE! Team PSA campaign was developed with support from the St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission.

SAFE! Team is presented in part through a collaboration with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

Saint Louis Story Stitchers’ Pick the City UP Tour including development of the 3 Steps Back Dance and appearances of the SAFE! Team at OVP Kickback events is supported in part by an award from the Regional Arts Commission.

Support is provided by a 2021 Accelerator Award for creative youth development from The Lewis Prize For Music.

Additional support is provided by Kranzberg Arts Foundation, where Saint Louis Story Stitchers is a proud resident arts organization.

Today!

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

10:00 AM

KSDK Channel 5

Catch Aakirah and Keith with

Story Stitchers new

3 Steps Back dance on Show Me St. Louis!

Next UP

OVP Kickback at O’Fallon Park!

Saturday, July 15, 2023

2:00-6:00 PM

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

10:00 AM

KSDK Channel 5

Catch Aakirah and Keith with

Story Stitchers new

3 Steps Back dance on Show Me St. Louis!

In 2022, 120 children were shot in unintentional shootings in St. Louis and 26 of those died. Across the U.S, In 2022, 4,476 were injured and 1,672 children under 17 were killed by gun violence, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization.

Let’s reduce unintentional shootings

and teen suicide!

Help spread the word!

Teach kids to take 3 steps back and

tell an adult if they find a gun!

Encourage adults to unload, lock and secure

their firearms to keep their loved ones SAFE!!

For more information about the project visit:

https://storystitchers.org/safe-team/

Get on our

SAFE! TEAM

Launching this week!!

OVP Kickback

July 15, 2021

O’Fallon Park

Story Stitchers will be with our friends

in the O’Fallon neighborhood Saturday!

2:00-6:00 PM

Stop by for free food, music, free gun locks, basketball, and more!!

Story Stitchers will perform at

2:45 PM and 4:45 PM!!!

Come learn our new dance!!

ALL FREE!

Coming up on Story Stitchers Pick the City UP Tour!!

Karaoke Night!

August 5, 2023

6:00-9:00 PM

HIGH LOW at 3301 Washington Ave in the Grande Center Arts District

All ages. Free.

Saint Louis Story Stitchers youth programs and SAFE! Team appearances at the OVP Kickback is supported in part by the City of St. Louis Department of Public Safety and the Office of Violence Prevention.

SAFE! Team is presented in part through a collaboration with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

Saint Louis Story Stitchers’ Pick the City UP Tour including development of the 3 Steps Back Dance and appearances of the SAFE! Team at OVP Kickback events is supported in part by an award from the Regional Arts Commission.

Support is provided by a 2021 Accelerator Award for creative youth development from The Lewis Prize For Music.

Additional support is provided by Kranzberg Arts Foundation, where Saint Louis Story Stitchers is a proud resident arts organization.

Donate Today

Through a $120,000, two-year, Think Big for Kids grant from YouthBridge Community Foundation, Story Stitchers is creating a series of public service announcements (PSAs) to help change the stigma around mental health care and provide information on accessing it.

Read the Youthbridge newsletter article HERE

Perception Isn’t Always Reality: Mental Health will reduce stigma of mental health care among Black youth in St. Louis City and County through the creation and dissemination of a public service announcement (PSA) campaign. The 24-month project will be led by 10 Black youth (ages 16-24) and 10 adult artist-mentors of color working in collaboration with health experts; community residents; and marketing, media, and communication professionals.

The resulting fact-based, peer-to-peer messaging will reach a wide audience through billboards and public transportation ads in North St. Louis City and County and social media and radio ads through the greater region. Youth are viewed as trusted messengers, driving regional change in knowledge and attitudes on mental illness and accessing mental health care.

Socioeconomic status and mental health are intrinsically connected; improvement in one enables improvement in the other. This innovative PSA project can be easily replicated to tackle stigma, misinformation, and distrust contributing to many other problems facing youth.

Collaborative partner Matthew W. Kreuter, PhD, MPH, Kahn Family Professor of Public Health and Director, Health Communication Research Laboratory at the Institute of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis wrote, “Story Stitchers works with and within the communities they serve using a collaborative approach between professional and youth artists. These collaborations produce works of extraordinary insight and vulnerability as artists reflect their own experiences and those of their peers and neighbors. Their work centers voices within the community using innovative approaches to storytelling. Story Stitchers has an extensive history of successful programming and collaborative impact that has positively engaged communities in St. Louis City and County.”

Story Stitchers previous work with Public Service Announcements includes Perception Isn’t Always Reality: Boosting Covid Vaccine Confidence for the CDC Foundation in 2022. Artifacts from the campaign are currently on view in the Trusted Messengers exhibition at the David J. Sencer CDC Museum, 1600 Clifton Road, NE, Atlanta GA 30329. The exhibition is on view November 25, 2022 – August 2023.

SAFE! Team which addresses safe firearm storage and teaches children to take #3stepsback if the come across a gun. SAFE! Team was created for the St.Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission and the Office of Violence Prevention in the City of St. Louis Department of Public Safety in 2022 and is currently being pushed out to the public. Story Stitchers will present #3stepsback as a live performance on July 11th, 2023 in O’Fallon Park at the Office of Violence Prevention Kickback Party, 2:00-6:00.

RAC To Give Nearly $4.5 Million in Grants

Saint Louis Story Stitchers is honored to receive a $15,000 award from the Regional Arts Commission for Pick the City UP. Funds will support public programs presented by the organization in underserved neighborhoods at block parties and various events.

Watch the video to see Founding President and Executive Director of Saint Louis Story Stitchers Susan Colangelo speak on a RAC panel to present the awards.

Saint Louis Story Stitchers will present a Pick the City UP event this weekend with People Planning and Working Together:

Juneteenth Block Party

Saturday, June 17

1:30-7:30

1717 Coleman St, Saint Louis, MO

Free and open to the public

Celebrate Juneteenth with a new play by Saint Louis Story Stitchers, written by Mario Farwell and directed by Gregory S. Carr.

The story… Wanda, a young African American, has just been accepted at a major university. She doesn’t know if she’ll return to St. Louis after graduating college.  She wants to explore other opportunities, but Zoot Suit, a well-known gangster, entices her to come work for him.   The community rallies to prevent Wanda from making a serious mistake and with the help of Scott Joplin, Madam CJ Walker, Cool Papa Bell and Tina Turner, they manage to save her from the clutches of Zoot Suit.

7:00 PM

Thursday, June 15 and Friday, June 16, 2023

.ZACK Theatre, 3224 Locust, St. Louis, MO 63103

Tickets $10 at the door or on MetroTix

https://www.metrotix.com/events/detail/saint-louis-story-stitchers-the-why-of-my-city

For more information about the project visit: https://storystitchers.org/the-why-of-my-city/

Acknowledgements

Saint Louis Story Stitchers’ The WHY of MY City is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. On the web at arts dot gov.

Support for Story Stitchers creative youth development programs is provided in part by The Lewis Prize for Music 2021 Accelerator Award.

Additional support is provided by Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, and Missouri Humanities Council, a state agency, and Kranzberg Arts Foundation.

Saint Louis Story Stitchers is pleased to announce we have been awarded a FY 2023 Grant for Arts Project in Media Arts award for $20,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts! We’re excited to bring it home to St. Louis, Missouri for the third year in a row!

Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective is a nationally recognized, award winning artists’ collective, known for high quality social justice art and innovative programming in creative youth development and gun violence prevention.

The program receiving funding from the National Endowment for the Arts is StitchCast Studio LIVE!

StitchCast Studio brings together youth and professional artists in St. Louis to develop and produce a series of podcast episodes. Watch and be a part of Story Stitchers live podcast discussions, presented on the state-of-the-arts stage of 3301 Washington Ave. Story Stitchers artists and guest artists will round out each presentation with live art interludes.

Youth, ages 16-24, lead meaningful dialogues that inspire original content in mentor-led workshops based on participants’ lived experiences in economically disadvantaged, high crime areas. Podcasts focus on the streets, gun violence, and finding solutions to issues that are coming at our youth hard. The project goal is to gain greater understanding of the needs and desires of the youth served and to give them an amplified voice to create needed changes in society, to support youth in a successful transition to adulthood, and to reduce youth crime in St. Louis. Youth artists use dialogue, original poetry, and music to highlight their personal experiences with gun violence, life transitions, and mental health, promoting mutual respect for diverse ideas, greater understanding, and a more peaceful society.

Available on Podbean, Google Podcasts, apple podcasts, Spotify and Youtube.

Grants for Arts Projects (GAP) is the principal grant category of the National Endowment for the Arts, supporting public engagement with, and access to, various forms of art across the nation, the creation of excellent art, learning in the arts at all stages of life, and the integration of the arts into the fabric of community life.

Matching grants in this category range from $10,000 to $100,000, cover 13 artistic disciplines, and are for organizations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC.

This grant is made possible, in part, by matching funds provided by  The Lewis Prize for Music  for the 2021 $500,000 Accelerator Award for youth music programs. 

And by Kranzberg Arts Foundation, where Saint Louis Story Stitchers is a resident organization with studio space for creative youth development at The Center, 3701 Grandel Sq, Studio 1A, St. Louis, Missouri, 63108. 

The effort to submit this grant was made possible in part by support from Missouri Foundation for Health.

Story Stitchers UPcoming public events

StitchCast Studio LIVE!

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

6:00-9:00

HIGH LOW

3301 Washington Ave, 63103

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

Special Guest Jean Ponzi

Green Resources Manager at EarthWays Center of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Reserve your FREE Seat

Listen to StitchCast Studio on all major podcast platforms.

Saint Louis Story Stitchers’ StitchCast Studio LIVE! is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. On the web at arts dot gov.

Support for Story Stitchers creative youth development programs is provided in part by The Lewis Prize for Music 2021 Accelerator Award.

Additional support for StitchCast Studio and Story Stitchers youth programs was provided by the Spirit of St. Louis Women’s Fund, Arts & Education Council, Trio Foundation, Deaconess Foundation, and Kranzberg Arts Foundation.