Story Stitchers had a great time with our friends at the Super Heroes of the West Side Halloween Block Party.

Thanks to our community partners Don, Karen and Antwan at Wellston Loop Community Development Corporation and Communities Reconnect, LLC, and Stop the Bleed, Metro Market, The Link, Tigerlili Resources, Inc, Operation Food Search, Good Will and Ready Readers.

Thanks also to Super Heroes US Attorney Jeff Jensen, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief John Hayden, and Judge Jimmie Edwards, Director of Public Safety for stopping by! Thanks for all you do.

TIME magazine: <http://time.com/guns-in-america/>

Click on the Stitchers Youth Council members photographs to hear their voices:

Emeara, AnnaLise, Anthony, Cali, Tylea, Chris. (upper left corner)

Hard copy of the November 5th, 2018 Guns in America TIME Magazine is on sale! 

See a screening of the full video mural in St. Louis!

Date: Monday, November 5, 2018

6:00-8:00pm

Regional Arts Commission

6128 Delmar Blvd.

St. Louis, MO 63112

RSVP Link: https://jrxtimeevents.splashthat.com

From the Saint Louis Story Stitchers book, Not Another One A Discussion on Gun Violence, 2015:

Teen (female):  Is there a protocol for policemen when there are assailants in front of them? Is their first instinct to shoot them?

Lieutenant Colonel Ronnie Robinson, Deputy Chief of St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, Commander of the Bureau of Community Affairs: We have what we call “Force Continuum” that we are trained in, where we use the least amount of force in order to get a situation under control and we do have to make split second decisions that can escalate from the matter of life to death. We’ve constantly trained our hands, we have batons, Tasers, and then we ultimately have our choices, we have a weapon, we have a gun, and they are all choices that a police officer has to make within a matter of seconds. Hopefully, we try to do it right every time and I understand what you are saying about “why are people asking the question why do we shoot to kill?”

Well, we are trained to shoot to stop movement.

Some people say, “why didn’t you shoot him in the leg?”, if it gets to that point, we are not trained that way, we are trained to shoot to stop movement and we train on a target and you are trained to shoot center mass.

There have been instances when, and I have friends that are police officers, they have been in gun battles and situations where they have been fired upon, and they shot at the suspect and hit the suspect in the leg and the suspect eventually shot them. I had one officer that was shot in the forehead and killed because he didn’t hit his target. I have had another officer move to shoot an individual and the individual hid in an alley and shot him five times in the lower extremities and he still chased that individual because of adrenaline. You know you can shoot someone and they can still act aggressively and still carry out an act of violence. So we know all of these things and all these things are in our mind and when we come to self-preservation and going home. I want you to go home, I want you to go home as a policeman, after any police encounter, and I want to go home to my family also.

In all, 89% of deaths by police in 2015 were caused by gunshot, 4% were Taser–related, 4% were deaths in custody following physical confrontations and 3% were deaths of people struck by police officers driving vehicles.[1]

To become part of Peace in the Prairie contact the Collective.

Email storystitchers@gmail.com or call 314-899-9001.

Open Story Collection: Violence and Peace

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

3:00-7:00

Stitchers Storefront Studio

616 N Skinker Blvd.

Open to the public. Add your voice.

[1] Lartey, Jamiles, Oliver Laughlhand, Ciara McCarthy, Jon Swaine. “Young Black Men Killed by US Police at Highest Rate in Year of 1,134 Deaths.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 31 Dec. 2015. Web.

Join Story Stitchers and help support our young Super Heroes of the West Side!

Donate to Light UP Halloween Smiles!!!

COLLECT AND BRING NEW WINTER HATS, GLOVES, SCARVES, MITTENS, OR WARM SOCKS TO DONATE TO THE GIVEAWAY BOX!

Drop off donations:

During Prep Day

Friday, October 26, 2018

1:00-4:00

616 N Skinker Blvd.

OR

At the Block Party:

Saturday, October 27th, 2018

2:00-4:00

1514 Hodiamont,

Corner of Hodiamont and Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. 

Catch the LIVE Performance featuring

KP Dennis, Ntegrity, and

Stitchers Youth Council’s

Branden, Anthony, Cali, AnnaLise, She’Kinah Tylea, and Shawn!

Community support from the Wellston Loop Community Development Corporation, Community Reconnect, LLC, Metro Market Bus and Saint Louis Story Stitchers.

TIME magazine: <http://time.com/guns-in-america/>

Click on the Stitchers Youth Council members photographs to hear their voices:

Emeara, AnnaLise, Anthony, Cali, Tylea, Chris. (Look near the Black Lives Matters sign)

Hard copy of the Magazine is on sale 10/26/18.

On October 20, 2018 Susan Colangelo, Cassandria White, She’Kinah Taylor drove to Bland, MO, to Prairie Star Restoration Farm, owned and cared for by Jan and Bruce Sassmann, for the Missouri Prairie Foundation’s Annual Meeting, Carol Davit Director.

She’Kinah Taylor, age 17, Stitchers Youth Council, documents her reflections in the car on the way back to St. Louis after her very first exploration of a Missouri prairie.

“Today we went to Prairie Star Restoration Farm in Bland, Missouri and it was beautiful. The plants were very healthy looking. It was memorable. It felt like freedom out here.

There’s a lot that you could learn about. The people here are really resourceful and know a lot about prairies.

It was lovely.

It was windy.

What impressed me the most was learning about the different sections of how they grow each of the plants and how they would burn parts of it down just for the rest of it to be able to grow up so it can be new plants on top of the surface.

And then knowing about how the different animals such as a buck deer will mark their territory and leave a scent so you can trace back and see if they were here or not. I thought that was really cool.

And then how the plants are really deep inside and the roots are really deep in the ground and that they die usually but people don’t know that even if they’re dead they are actually growing another new plant on top of it so it’s kind of like reproducing the same type of plant on top of the surface so that’s why they have to put a fire out on it so that the dead one can go away and the fresh one can come on top of it. So I thought that was actually real neat.

Yeah this trip was really cool. I learned a lot about nature and how we should not take it for granted because we really basically need this in our lives a lot. I’m happy that I did come.

I learned that nature is everywhere and we should take really good care of it. And there’s not a lot of prairies left in the world so we should be mindful about that.

Story Stitchers is very pleased to announce that Lush Cosmetics, Inc., through its Charity Pot program, is providing a charitable grant towards programming for a youth-driven collaborative project called Community Conversations: Youth Council Development, that uses a mobile stage to drive public engagement and honest discourse on issues including gun violence, gangs, food insecurity, addiction, etc.

Through ongoing collaborative relationships in Dutchtown with Thomas Dunn Learning Center’s Southside Youth Council and on the West Side with the Wellston Loop Community Development Corporation and Communities Forward, LLC, Story Stitchers Youth Council leaders will join with area youth to create programming for two of St. Louis’s challenged districts to foster safe and supportive opportunities for youth to gather, socialize, and further develop leadership and vocational skills.

Saint Louis Story Stitchers extends a heart felt THANK YOU! to everyone at Lush Cosmetics, Inc. for your big hearts and open minds! We are grateful for this opportunity!

Join Story Stitchers and help support our young Super Heroes of the West Side!

Donate to Light UP Halloween Smiles!!!

COLLECT AND BRING NEW WINTER HATS, GLOVES, SCARVES, MITTENS, OR WARM SOCKS TO DONATE TO THE GIVEAWAY BOX!

Drop off donations:

During Prep Day

Friday, October 26, 2018

1:00-4:00

616 N Skinker Blvd.

OR

At the Block Party:

Saturday, October 27th, 2018

2:00-4:00

1514 Hodiamont,

Corner of Hodiamont and Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. 

Catch the LIVE Performance featuring

KP Dennis, Ntegrity, and

Stitchers Youth Council’s

Branden, Anthony, Cali, AnnaLise, She’Kinah Tylea, and Shawn!

Community support from the Wellston Loop Community Development Corporation, Community Reconnect, LLC, Metro Market Bus and Saint Louis Story Stitchers.

On a walk at Shaw Nature Reserve naturalist James Trager of the Missouri Botanical Garden told Story Stitchers that prairie is a French word that means a meadow or grassland. There are different types of prairies, one of which is the tall grass prairie. There are many types of plants that make up a prairie. Three of the types of grasses are Turkey Foot, Indian Grass and Northern Drop Seed.

OPEN STORY COLLECTION: VIOLENCE AND PEACE

If you would like to contribute a story to this project’s archives, about violence or peace that you have experienced in either the city or the prairie lands of Missouri, please contact Story Stitchers at storystitchers@gmail.com, call 314-899-9001, or drop by the Storefront Studio during one of the Story Collection sessions. 

We’d like to hear from you.

Stitchers Storefront Studio

616 N Skinker Blvd in the Delmar Loop

Audio Recording Session: Wed., November 7, 2018, 3:00-7:00

To become part of Peace in the Prairie contact the Collective.

Email storystitchers@gmail.com or call 314-899-9001.

To become part of Peace in the Prairie contact the Collective.

Email storystitchers@gmail.com or call 314-899-9001.

Excerpt from the Saint Louis Story Stitchers book,  Not Another One A Discussion on Gun Violence, 2015

Teen: How much gun violence is a problem caused by a lack of education?

Lieutenant Colonel Ronnie Robinson, Deputy Chief of Police, Commander of the Bureau of Community Affairs: We consistently see that individuals involved in gun violence are lacking in terms of education. The dropout rate is particularly high among individuals that are using weapons to commit criminal acts. Education is a big factor in the success of kids NOT being involved in criminal activity. There is definitely a relationship between lack of education and gun violence.

Rachel Smith, Chief Prosecutor from the Circuit Attorney’s Office and the Community Affairs Bureau: I agree with the Colonel. The lack of education is heartbreaking. We see the results every day at the Circuit Attorney’s Office, parents of young men, mostly under the age of 20, who have been killed. Sometimes the parents will be armed themselves. Sometimes the mother will say, “I asked him not to carry, I TOLD him not to carry,” while others will say he had to carry.

Sadly, we believe that often that decision to carry a weapon made by that young man is what led to his death. It seems that the lack of information among some parts of our community as well as that of some family members is a significant factor in the gun violence problem we currently have.

To become part of Peace in the Prairie contact the Collective.

Email storystitchers@gmail.com or call 314-899-9001.

—-

PEACE IN THE PRAIRIE

OPEN STORY COLLECTION: VIOLENCE AND PEACE

Drop in to the Stitchers Storefront Studio at 616 N Skinker Blvd in the Delmar Loop.

Audio Recording Sessions:

Tues., October 2, 2018, 11:00-2:00

Wed., November 7, 2018, 3:00-7:00

When a person lives in an urban area where sirens, screeching tires, and gunshots can be heard nightly, how will their sense of self and world view change when that person experiences and explores native prairies?

If you would like to contribute a story to the Peace in the Prairie project’s archives, about violence or peace that you have experienced in either the city or the prairie lands of Missouri, please contact Story Stitchers at storystitchers@gmail.com, call 314-899-9001, or drop by the Storefront Studio during one of the Story Collection sessions.

We’d like to hear from you.

Tell a story that relates to violence or a peaceful experiences in a natural setting, share an original poem or rap, share a phrase or proverb, or share your thoughts on what steps the community or country can take to stop violence.

Peace in the Prairie is supported by an Annual Discipline Minority Arts grant from Missouri Arts Council for the research and creation of a new conceptual work of art entitled Peace in the Prairie.

The project is also supported by a grant from the Missouri Foundation for Health. The Foundation is a resource for the region, working with communities and nonprofits to generate and accelerate positive changes in health. As a catalyst for change, the Foundation improves the health of Missourians through a combination of partnership, experience, knowledge, and funding.

To become part of Peace in the Prairie contact the Collective.

Email storystitchers@gmail.com or call 314-899-9001.