Katherine Alexander discusses how she turned to the art of pysanky after leaving her career in music education — and found both a creative outlet and a big following on Tik Tok. She’s now using Ukrainian Easter eggs to raise money for Ukraine.
St. Louis Earth Day Festival is back in Forest Park after a two-year hiatus. Jess Watson, the executive director of earthday365, and Sierra Club partner Leah Clyburn give a preview of the event and discuss what environmental justice looks like for the St. Louis region.
Dream Builders 4 Equity has pioneered a new workforce development model in St. Louis over the last six years. CEO Michael Woods and the nonprofit’s mentees share how the organization runs a successful workforce development model for area youth.
Jamey Stegmaier, co-founder of St. Louis-based Stonemaier Games, discusses the art of designing a hit board game and why tabletop games will never go out of style — even in a digital age. This episode originally aired on Nov. 19, 2021.
In this encore episode, Jean Ponzi of the Missouri Botanical Garden explains how fogging for mosquitoes has grave consequences for our ecosystem — and how we can make ourselves less attractive to these pests without harming the environment.
Citizen scientists are helping biologists monitor our region's bee populations through the Shutterbee initiative. In this encore episode, Nicole Miller-Struttmann talks about how Shutterbee works and the critical roles bees play in our ecosystem.
A new report from the Freedom Community Center found St. Louis Circuit Court judges are increasingly denying bond — even for misdemeanor charges. Founder Mike Milton and policy organizer Hattie Svoboda-Stel discuss what this shift away from cash bail means for people charged with crimes, and the community.
The Tap In Center at St. Louis County Library's Florissant Valley branch gives people a space to address outstanding warrants and other legal matters without risking arrest. Nearly 300 warrants have been recalled since the center launched in the fall of 2020. Grant manager Miranda Gibson explains what led to a second location at the library branch in Moline Acres.
Dana Levin discusses exploring St. Louis after moving from Santa Fe, why she’s not ready to reject T.S. Eliot and the themes in her new book, “Now Do You Know Where You Are.”
Amid a national shortage of 80,000 truckers, companies are struggling to hire and retain the next generation of drivers. A St. Louis trucker tells us what brought him back to the road in 2022, while Tom Crawford of the Missouri Trucking Association shares what companies are doing to keep the industry rolling.
Bold Spoon Creamery started out because founder Rachel Burns couldn’t kill her mint plant. All her excess mint (and plenty of atypical flavors later) led to Bold Spoon launching in 2020. Now, Straub’s and Schnucks carry pints. Burns joined the show to share how not even a pandemic could stop her success.
Principal Brittany Green is a finalist for the 2022 Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Leadership for her work transforming Gordon Bush Elementary from a failing school to a “commendable” one. She shares how she changed teacher mindsets and how she fights burnout.
New data on opioid deaths among Black St. Louisans show fatal overdoses up by more than 500% since 2015. A physician and a researcher with the new CENTER Initiative discuss what they’re doing to reduce those deaths.
City Foundry STL — the popular retail, entertainment and food hub in midtown St. Louis — has 16 food stalls, with another on the way. Sauce Magazine Executive Editor Meera Nagarajan gives her recommendations. She also details a new restaurant to try in West County and one in St. Charles.
O’Fallon, Illinois, junior high school teachers PJ and Jamie Creek built a thriving business creating detail-rich posters about American government. They discuss their first book, “We the People and the Presidency,” and the art of making social studies accessible to students.
Playwright Colin Healy’s “Big Machine” was inspired by the deadly events at a Standard Oil factory in Bayway, New Jersey, in 1924. He and director Nancy Bell discuss the history of lead poisoning — and what it takes to transform tragedy into musical theater.
Five St. Louis-area Starbucks stores have filed for unionization. Two workers discussed what’s driving these efforts, as Wash U’s Jake Rosenfeld gives insight to the wave of unionizations sweeping the nation.
Black entrepreneurs want to see more entrepreneurs from marginalized backgrounds break into the cannabis industry. The executive director of Exit Now, Marne Madison, discusses what it will take to make that vision a reality, while Adrienne Scales-Williams and Jamila Owens-Todd of Luxury Leaf share their story as Black women working in medical marijuana in Missouri.
Decades after lead was banned in residential paint, water pipes and gasoline, thousands of Missouri children continue to suffer from lead poisoning. Reporter Allison Kite discusses her new deep dive into the issue, co-produced by the Missouri Independent and NPR's Midwest Newsroom.
Terrell Robinson has served 12 years in Missouri prisons for a parole violation that he says was never explained to him. Attorneys at the MacArthur Justice Center say his incarceration is part of a pattern that led to a federal judge ruling in 2020 that Missouri’s parole system is unconstitutional. Attorney Amy Breihan and Robinson’s wife Lawanda discuss his case.