A Message from Our Founders
While our founders Bruce Bailey and Kathleen Becherer were not able to join us in person for our 30th Anniversary Celebrations, we’re grateful for the words they shared with us which were read at the event by ACSTL alumni Jimmy Truschel.
“Greetings from Bruce Bailey and Kathleen Becherer, founding directors of AmeriCorps St. Louis. Boy is it exciting to know that you guys are celebrating 30 years of service!
We asked Jimmy, a best of friends and alum, to convey our thoughts and memories with you during your celebration. If Bruce were with you, and we both really really wish we were with you, he would be shouting out “Oceeoo”.
One of many special memories that Bruce had with the Corps was to share Native American stories, especially those of Black Elk . I urge you to get a book called THE EARTH SPEAKS, where many of Bruce’s stories originated. Bruce spent a lot of time in his life among Native Americans and carried many of those traditions on with him in the Corps, like the way we always used to sit and listen to his stories in a circle.
The fact that this is your anniversary, reminds me of how important it is to share history. So let me bend your ear for a few minutes and tell you some of the things that you may or may not know about some of the people and years that went before you. You know, every Corps establishes some of its early traditions or values from its founders. In your case, it was Bruce, who not only brought a lot of Native American traditions with him, but also some of the ways he taught you from his years as the Director of STREAM, the St. Louis Regional Experiential Adventure Movement, building/using ropes courses and leading Quests. In fact, I suppose it was in AmeriCorps St. Louis first year that the STREAM program was about to shut down, but Bruce stepped in and took leadership of it again at the same time that he was leading and developing Americorps St. Louis. Julianne and Mia who are probably with you this weekend, first came with us, as part of STREAM… we called them “streamers”.
But let me back up just a little bit more and tell you that right before the creation of AmeriCorps, in 1988, Bruce had partnered with Operation BrightSide to write a nationally funded grant that focused on creating a model urban youth corps. The St. Louis Environmental Youth Corps, as it was known, was given the old seventh district police station as their headquarters and those Corps members took it upon themselves to do much of the landscaping for the then blossoming Grand Center, as well as a huge amount of tree planting along the Mississippi river, trail building, graffiti removal, and the first big recycling programs for the City of St. Louis. At the same time Kathleen, who had a long history of working with youth and the criminal justice system, was developing city/county partnerships to both strengthen and eliminate a lot of redundancy in public service programs.
Well guess what? Bruce and Kathleen were married and now the whole nation was talking about this new thing called AmeriCorps that wedded their dreams together. So in April, 1994, Kathleen and Bruce received a grant called the Summer of Safety which was to become one of six model programs for the soon to be created AmeriCorps. .. and AmeriCorps St. Louis’ began with a Quest involving youth of the Hemez Pueblo in New Mexico…the first AmeriCorps Quest!
Now mind you, by this time things were moving very quickly and in order to have an AmeriCorps program, you either had to be not-for-profit or be under the umbrella of a not-for-profit. Having developed a good relationship with the American Youth Foundation (AYF) over the years, with shared values, American Youth Foundation (AYF) agreed to bring this new grant program under its umbrella. The AmeriCorps program adopted AYF’s mantra. “my own self at my very best all the time“ but was soon to develop mantras of its own. It wasn’t very long before “the baby was bigger than the bathwater” and AmeriCorps housed the entire first floor of what was then the AYF headquarters. Then in the year 2000, the building suffered catastrophic damage due to years of deferred maintenance. AYF decided that instead of renovating the building they would build a new one, and given that AmeriCorps was so large, they decided it was better to part ways. so that they could afford to do that and the building was put up for sale for, I think, $30,000. Fortunately, Don Danforth who was the chairperson for the AYF, came to Bruce and said ‘don’t worry, I’ll make sure you survive this split’ and offered the building to AmeriCorps for one dollar. He also called upon three of his best friends who created a not-for-profit, incorporated us as Partnership For Youth (PYG) and personally those four men contributed a half million dollars to renovate the building. Don died soon afterwards, but his childhood friend, John Sant, took over the lead.
Initially, Corps Members provided programming in rural areas, suburban areas, and urban areas wanting to make it clear that, there were needs that needed to be met everywhere. But in our fourth year, we realized that the distance between programs was difficult, and in fact, the greatest need was in the City of St. Louis. So our 4th year, we refocused AmeriCorps Members who were placed in St. Louis Public schools, predominantly community education centers, with two programs. The larger program of about 30 Members provided tutoring in all subject areas in elementary schools. The focus became much more refined in later years, specifically focused on reading K through 3rd. The second program was the public safety program which partnered with the St. Louis Police Department Community Policing, and the City’s Neighborhood Stabilization Officers to strengthen the areas around those schools and to provide mentoring for students in middle school. AYF even recruited us to assist them in building an education corps based out of Camp Miniwanca for western counties of Michigan.
Meanwhile, Bruce was always saying “See the need meet the need“. So it made sense, after the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City, when one of our Members serving in the Safety program called Bruce and said “so what are we going to do to meet the need?“ Pushed to walk his talk, Bruce responded ‘well I guess we’re gonna go’. I think there were many times like this that drove John Sant crazy. I think he called Bruce “a Boy Scout” at that time, but Bruce was determined that if there was something that we could do, we would be the first to be there and to do it.
Given the success and publicity about our response, when other emergencies occurred people often called on us and after a while, we could no longer just pull Members from the regular site assignments, so we set up a separate Emergency Response Team made up of 12 members, I believe. There were hurricanes, there were tornados, there were wildfires, there was flooding, and there were people who were unhoused. We had a team in the Mayor’s Office. We had a resource team in our office. Soon we had a credible relationship with FEMA which later became a national network of AmeriCorps Disaster Teams called ADRT. We recruited at Lallapalooza!!! And, last but certainly not least, is the still thriving emergency housing shelter.
And it grew, everyday we served to our capacity. We became lifetime friends, and sometimes partners who then had AmeriCorps kids! Actually, our son, Ian, and his wife, Jessica, met in the Corps and now Bruce and I have two AmeriKids for grandchildren!!!
In fact, during the 2007-2008 recession when the unemployment rate in the St. Louis area grew to at 18%, we saw the need and we met the need by creating a third program called the Career Corps. On some of those days, the lines going into the unemployment offices wound around the block. So many people in those lines were not educated or trained in the new technology they faced once they got through those doors, so Members were there to teach people how to use computers, how to access job openings, and how to interview for those jobs. I tell you, we have always had such smart and generous Members that we never had to flinch, and our Members never failed to come through for people… the least served, the last served, and then never served were our specialty.
I know I’m talking too long, but it’s so much fun for me to remember those years, some of the best years of my life … and I’ll never ever forget the Members I served alongside. Bruce and I will carry your hearts in our hearts forever.
Unfortunately, Bruce suffered a stroke during his last year as director. One week after Bruce retired and moved to Oregon on the small farm where we live, we lost absolutely everything in a wildfire. Fortunately, we had neighbors much like AmeriCorps Members who saw the need, rescued us and helped to bury our sweet goats. I was severely burned and on life-support, but have recovered fully. One thing we haven’t been able to recover yet is our farm … but we’re working on it. Now, I really know what it’s like to be unhoused.
The memories of you, the help you sent, and the visits to us have kept us going strong. I could talk forever about how much each of you have given to us, have made us strong and have forever given us the best years of our lives. We hope and pray that, as soon as we can, we will host an alumni gathering in Oregon. How’s that! Miss you so much. OCEEOO”