LEAD STL

We’re halfway there! 🎉

Thanks to the incredible generosity of our community, we’ve reached the halfway point of the Join the Journey Campaign—but we’re not done yet!

⏰ The campaign ends tonight, June 17, at 10:00 PM. Go to https://www.charidy.com/leadstl.

There’s still time to make a difference, and thanks to our 4X Match, every dollar you give will be quadrupled to support student scholarships, immersive learning experiences, and leadership development for future LEAD STL students.

Help us cross the finish line and invest in the next generation of bridge builders, changemakers, and courageous leaders.

💙 Every gift matters. Every mile matters. Every student matters.

✨ Welcome Home, Class 21! ✨🏡

After two incredible weeks of immersive learning, courageous conversations, and transformational experiences, we were thrilled to welcome our Cultural Leadership Fellowship students home. 🦋

From Baltimore to Washington, DC, Atlanta, Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma, Mobile, New Orleans, and Jackson, students explored history where it happened, engaged with community leaders and faith communities, built relationships across difference, and discovered their own capacity to lead change.

Thank you to the families, friends, alumni, and supporters who joined us to celebrate this special milestone and hear students share their reflections from the Journey. Your encouragement and belief in these young leaders make experiences like this possible.

Welcome home, Class 21. Your Journey may have ended, but your leadership is just beginning. 🦋✨

The Join the Journey Campaign is officially underway! ✨✨

For the next 36 hours, your support will help make transformative learning experiences possible for future LEAD STL students through scholarships, immersive educational experiences, and leadership development.

From exploring Black and Jewish history to engaging with community leaders and civil rights organizations, the Transformational Journey empowers young people to build bridges across difference and become courageous changemakers.

Every gift makes an impact—and thanks to our 4X Match, every donation goes four times as far!

Join us in investing in the next generation of leaders.

💙 Give today and help shape tomorrow. Go to https://www.charidy.com/leadstl.

Cultural Leadership Fellowship Class 21, Transformational Journey Day 13: New Orleans, LA 🚌 Jackson, MS!! ✨✨ Students had a conversation with the Institute of Southern Jewish Life about Jewish life, culture, identity, resilience, and community across the South. These conversations remain deeply relevant today following the recent antisemitic attack targeting Jackson’s Jewish community earlier this year.

Our Journey tradition concludes with a debrief with the Mississippi Communities United For Prosperity (MCUP) who focuses on Youth Organizing, Environmental Justice & Policy. Upcoming initiatives are campaigning on Data Centers and Clean Water for All.

Students were left with the question, How uncomfortable are you willing to be to utilize the power you have?

Stay tuned to join the journey with us!!

Cultural Leadership Fellowship Class 21, Transformational Journey Day 12: New Orleans, LA!! ✨✨ Students attended Sunday service at Franklin Avenue Baptist Church () whose mission is “To Exalt the Savior”, “Equip the Saints”, and “Evangelize the Sinners”!, after service students got a chance to connect with Pastor Fred Luter, Jr.

Then Students toured StudioBE (), a public art space created by artist Brandan ‘BMike’ Odums to explore how art can be used as a tool for activism, healing, resistance, cultural expression, and conversations about race, justice, identity, and community.

Stay tuned to join the journey with us!!

Cultural Leadership Fellowship Class 21, Transformational Journey Day 11: Selma, AL 🚌 Mobile, AL 🚌 New Orleans, LA!! ✨✨ Students visited the Africatown Heritage House () and learned about how survivors of the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to arrive in the US, built Africatown as a community rooted in resilience, culture, memory, and self-determination despite generations of injustice and displacement.

After an amazing lunch at Shipyard Cafe, students participated in a Africatown Community Tour led by Joycelyn Davis, a descendant of the Clotilda survivors and featured voice in the Netflix documentary Descendant.

Students learned about the West African Sankofa symbol used to expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present in order to make positive progress.

It’s not about the ship, it’s about the people, we are all memory keepers, and someone is dependent on us to tell their story.

Stay tuned to join the journey with us!!

Cultural Leadership Fellowship Class 21, Transformational Journey Day 10: Selma, AL!! ✨✨ Students toured the Voting Rights Museum and met with local Attorney, Malika Sanders-Fortier with Chestnut Sanders & Sanders LLC who reviewed Voter Suppression and how it is showing up today. Encouraging students to stay plugged in and be active, because checking out is dangerous. She also stressed that these issues ARE solvable and left us with a quote by Frederick Douglass, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”

After an amazing lunch at Reflections Coffee Shoppe (), students met with Temple Mishkan Israel, a historic Jewish congregation connected to Selma’s Civil Rights history and Jewish life in the South.

The day ended with a conversation with Joyce O’Neal, a community member connected to Brown Chapel AME Church, one of the most important organizing sites of the Selma Voting Rights Movement and their role during Bloody Sunday.

Stay tuned to join the journey with us!!