Hope Comes to Visit
Hope Comes to Visit is a soulful podcast that holds space for real stories, honest conversations, and the kind of moments that remind us we’re never alone.
Hosted by author, speaker, and former TV journalist-turned-storyteller Danielle Elliott Smith, the show explores the full spectrum of the human experience — from the tender to the triumphant. Through powerful interviews and reflective storytelling, each episode offers light, connection, and presence for anyone navigating the in-between.
Whether you’re grieving, growing, beginning again, or simply craving something real, Hope Comes to Visit will meet you right where you are — with warmth, grace, and the quiet belief that even in the dark, transformation can take root.
New episodes drop every Monday, so you can begin your week with a little light, reflection, and hope.
Hope Comes to Visit
Build-A-Bear, Build-A-City: Maxine Clark on Curiosity, Business & Belonging
What happens when you treat curiosity like a business plan and community like your bottom line? Maxine Clark—founder of Build-A-Bear and the force behind St. Louis’s Delmar Divine—talks about creating brands that hold people, not just products. We explore the question that keeps opening doors for her: “How can I help?” and the multiplier that guides her work—1+1=100.
We don’t run the play-by-play; we sit with the pivots: listening to children, translating insight into action, and building places where families can access programs, housing, and services. The Build-A-Bear founder followed her curiosity into community transformation—asking better questions, listening to kids, and building spaces where opportunity lives. She also teases a new project, Trick or Tree STL—a Halloween donation-box drive inviting kids to help replant tornado-lost trees. If you care about entrepreneurship with a human heartbeat, this one’s for you.
Learn more about the work Maxine is doing, her projects and connect with her here:
Trick or Tree STL - This Halloween, kids across St. Louis will collect cash donations to help replant thousands of trees lost in the May 16, 2025
tornado. Trick or Tree teaches kids ecology, philanthropy, and community
pride while restoring our region’s green canopy. As they grow, so will the trees,creating a legacy in their own hometown.
BluePrint4 - Our vision is to ensure St. Louis families have easy access to information about high-quality learning opportunities and the support necessary for their children to attend.
Delmar Divine - Delmar DivINe maximizes the efficiency, effectiveness, and impact of the nonprofit sector in the St. Louis region, especially among health, education and human service organizations, while simultaneously being a catalyst for the transformation of neighborhoods in North St. Louis City.
Clark Fox Family Foundation - Founded in 2004, the Clark-Fox Family Foundation supports the growth and prosperity of the St. Louis metropolitan region through research, program development and investments in PK-12, higher education, public health, immigration, social justice and racial equity, community leadership, and entrepreneurship. The Foundation prioritizes programs and investments that empower the end user and leverage each other for broader access and greater impact for our children and community.
Thank you for listening to Hope Comes to Visit. If this conversation helps, follow the show, share it with someone who needs hope today, and leave a review - it helps others find their way to these conversations.
New episodes drop every Monday, so you can begin your week with a little light and a lot of hope.
For more stories, reflections, and ways to connect, visit www.DanielleElliottSmith.com or follow along on Instagram @daniellesmithtv and @HopeComestoVisit
She said, these are easy. We could make these. And the light bulb went on uh on in my head and I could see the store, I could see everything because I'd been to factories that made stuffed animals.
SPEAKER_02:I'm Danielle Elliott Smith, and this is Hope Comes to Visit, a podcast that celebrates the light we find in each other's stories. I am really excited to introduce you to my guest today, my guest, Maxine Clark. Thank you so much for being here. You are the founder and former CEO, so chief executive mayor of Bill DeBayr, and you have so many other titles. So the CEO of the Clark Fox Family Foundation and the chief inspirator of the Delmar Divine. You are obviously well known here in the St. Louis area, and there isn't anyone in the world who hasn't heard about Bill DeBayr. I was in Copenhagen just a couple of like a month ago, and I'm walking through the airport and I look and I see Bill DeBayer and I think, Bill DeBair is worldwide. And I knew that I was going to be sitting down with you in a couple of weeks. So let's take a quick moment to thank the people that support and sponsor the podcast. When life takes an unexpected turn, you deserve someone who will stand beside you. St. Louis attorney Chris Duly offers experienced one-on-one legal defense. Call 314-384-4000 or 314-DUI help. Or you can visit Dullylawfirm.com. That's D-U-L-L-E lawfirm.com for a free consultation. Thank you so much for being here. You're welcome. Your your story, your light, is such an inspiration to so many. And knowing that I was going to be sitting down with you, I you and I go go back quite a bit. Um, but what I love about your story is your heart and your inspiration. Will you tell our viewers and our listeners a little bit about your inspiration behind Build De Beer first? And then we're gonna dive into your philanthropy and and your heart for kids and all the work you do here in St. Louis.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, thank you for asking. Well, Bill Dear uh wasn't I didn't dream of going into my own business because I worked for the May department stores um for 20-something years, and I always ran my own business, but on somebody else's nickel. Right. And uh lots was happening in the region. I loved working for the May Capitoly. I had so many opportunities. It's how I came to St. Louis, it's how I met my husband. Uh how I have so many friends and roots here uh now. Um so it was a wonderful career. But just one day, you know, in the in the tech revolution of the of our country and starting to use technology in business, I realized that that they weren't going where they needed to go. And while I was running a a gigantic company, Pay Less Use Source, with 4,500 stores and doing two and a half billion, it wasn't what it was cracked up to be. Like you, the further up the ladder you go, the farther away from the customer you go. And I think my strength has always been um understanding who I'm talking to, who I'm working with. And that was my journalism. I loved journalism. I was a high school editor of my newspaper, I took journalism in college, and it you know made you go out and ask questions and and write stories and work on projects that would elevate somebody else's brand. And um that to me was really fun, understanding the customer. And so um I decided to leave that job. Uh payless was uh going public as a separate company. I didn't want to do that, and it was in Topeka, Kansas. I wanted to come back to St. Louis. I had never really left, it was just commuting, but the um and I got wanted to get my kid think back. That was really it. So my next door neighbor kids, um, I grew up in a neighborhood where I I was really good friends with other adults and my the two kids that live next door to me, we were really close friends. So I would pick them up in the morning and take them to school and pick them up in the afternoon and um bring them back home. And on our way home that day, uh, we decided to stop at a toy store near our neighborhood and look for beanie babies. They were really popular. I remember the beanie babies. And uh they had a sign in the window that said we have beanie babies, so we stopped and went in, but they didn't really have any because during the day the parents trolled the stores to buy them for for their kids and they took this the discovery away. They took the the fun of the collecting and cataloging it and putting it you know together and seeing how many you could get uh away. And when Katie saw they didn't really have them and she was disappointed that they had a sign in the window that said we have dishonest, but yeah, she said, These are easy, we could make these. And the light bulb went on uh on in my head and I could see the store, I could see everything because I'd been to factories that made stuffed animals, and I knew that we could, you know, re- uh uh re-jig it to get it to be facing the customer instead of in a factory.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And I looked around for businesses in America that could um find it. But we went home to my house, the kids went downstairs in my craft room and got out all the stuff to make you know, the stuffed animals. And Katie had already drawn the one that she wanted, and the um she came up and said, What are you doing? And I said, Well, I'm looking for a company to see. I was netscaping because that's where we were in 1997. Um or nine early, late ninety-six, I think we were. And I said, I'm looking to see if there's a company I could buy and turn it into a place where you can make your own stuffed animals. Didn't have the name yet. And she said, Well, I didn't mean that. I said, Well, I know you didn't, but it's I think it's a really good idea. And again, it's a hands-on experience. Kids are getting in front of screens now, and it was very hard, you know, hard. And a stuffed animal is very soft. But I knew about my relationship with my stuffed animal, my teddy bear teddy, very creative name. And Katie and George, her stuffed animal, and her brother Jack had Teddy, his was Teddy, and they didn't go anywhere without him. If they came to spend the night at my house, those bears were with him, and I loved them as much as they did because I could remember my relationship with my stuffed animal. And when I lost him, I was I was beside myself. So all of those experiences, my own childhood, their childhood, the childhood of their friends and my other friends' kids, you know, came to play in what we built as Build-A-Bear workshop.
SPEAKER_02:See, that's extraordinary, and it's just these little pieces of light bulb moments go off. And you think, wait, I can do this and I can create this extraordinary experience for children. How hard was it to get it started? Right. I mean, you're talking about late 90s, early 2000s. Um in the mid-2000s, I wrote a book about women starting businesses, right? And so I know that when generally speaking, when women start businesses, we especially from home, we start small and grow. The smallest percentage of women go after venture capital, go after funding, and say, I've got something big that's going to grow. And they ask for investors. So what route did you take? And and how did you did you ever dream that this would be as big as it is?
SPEAKER_01:I did dream it. It's I wrote a 10-year business plan. Good for that. And um, I wasn't gonna do anything small. I mean, I ran a 2,500 store company. You know, you can't go to small in a nothing, what other people seem as small is not small. Build a bear has like 600 stores around the world. That's small in comparison to many retail chains. So um, but it's big in in what it produces and not not so much just the money, the the memories and the heart and the soul of of relating to your customer in a different way. So um I did have that plan. I knew it could be successful because kids told me it would be successful. Right. I went straight to the kids. My first board of directors was children. And they really yeah, they uh my friends' kids, kids I met in the mall. I said, Would you like to be on a board of directors? And they looked at me like I was crazy. But we did. We met on Saturday mornings in the store before it was built, and then after it was built, we they helped me decide what was good were good animals for the beginning. And um they're all grown up now and they have their own children, and they bring their own children to build a bear. But that was very helpful to me. Not that I didn't know what I wanted, but I always have known the customer was um the key to success. And I can go all the way back because I went to work at the Bay Company in um say in in Washington, D.C. I was going I moved to Washington, D.C. My intention was go to go to law school. I had to go to work to pay for it. And um I got a job in the executive training program at the company in Washington, DC. And I loved it from the beginning. I had no idea that's what people do, that it how where merchandise comes from one place to another. Um because my mother, you we were my sister and I were both small, and my mother made our clothes, partially because we were small, partially because we could sh she loved it, she was creative, but we couldn't afford to buy go buy those clothes that were now they don't seem so expensive, but in those days it seemed expensive to us. And I remember when I got to be best dressed in my class, that was like a really big deal when you know your mother I didn't tell people my mother made my clothes. Right. But um, but anyway, the um I was really meant for the business. And my college marketing professor, Dr. Carter, he encouraged me. He said, you know, you gotta go earn some money to go to school, you might as well go into retail, you're really good at it. And I thought, like, how does he know I'm good at retail? I never worked at a retail store. Um I like clothes and I like things like that. But he had a from from the questions and what he was teaching us in marketing, branding, and things like that, he could see my hand going up there all the time, and he knew that I really um had a passion for it. And I did. And um one day, many years later, I went he invited me back to teach his class and uh with my book and give everybody in the class a book. And um I was really proud because he had a lot of of a say in that book. Not from did I consult with him, but he taught me a lot of things that are in that book. And also I'm a you know, I went a lot of places that I couldn't afford to go in the door, but I would observe. Um, with my mother on Saturdays, we would go downtown in Miami and just look in the windows because we really couldn't afford what they were selling, but we could dream about it. And I always wondered where are they wearing all those clothes? Because I, you know, and even in Florida, with it's hot, they would show women in mink coats and windows. And uh yes, when they got to the holiday season of uh uh cruise wear, then we it was obvious what you could wear that anywhere. But and it so so for me it was always interesting more than I knew. You know, I just liked it, and my mother made me beautiful things, and people always admired me. But it wasn't like um I thought that was gonna be my destiny. In fact, I wanted to do anything a woman didn't do when I graduated from college in 1971. Yeah, I wouldn't be they want to be a teacher, nurse, social worker, or secretary. I wanted to do something different and and law, I wanted to be a civil rights attorney. I grew up in the civil rights movement, and my mother was a civil rights person for children with um dis differently able children. Um and I I thought that they needed a lot of help, you know, and so there was a real opportunity for me to um make a difference in that world. And I intended to do that, but I got a job, and um my boss got sick and he had to take off about nine months because he had a heart attack, and in those days you took a long time off.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And by the time he came back, we had changed the whole department and turned it around. He he was doing well because it was a women's sportswear, but we made it for the 21st century, or the well, we were still in the 20th then, but we made it for working women, and um we just did a huge amount of business and he got his biggest bonus ever, and he shared it with me, and I wasn't bonus eligible. So that was a that was an important lesson, you know, that if you do what you're supposed to do, number one, go with your heart, but also realizing that you're doing it for someone else also, you know, his success was important to me. And I didn't know him very long because he'd I just worked for him for maybe six weeks. And um, it was such a talk of the company because who's who is she? Who does she think she is, you know? And one of the great things about retail is that it's results oriented. So it doesn't matter if you're tall or short or male or female, you get the results. Um that's all they care about. That's what they notice. And I was good at that. I was really good at the consumer. I would be on the floor all the time talking to the customers, and um, my curiosity is my superpower, and it really paid off in almost every single thing I've done in my life. Sometimes somebody might get irritated that I'd ask one of my deep dive questions. But um, you know, for the most part, it's just been my my um real ability that that ability to ask a question and not be worried about they didn't think it's a dumb question. Just ask it and get it out there. And and and it's usually a question that other people are thinking, but they don't have the guts to ask, so it helps a lot more people than just you get the answer.
SPEAKER_02:I feel as though you have many superpowers. And curiosity is one of them, but I feel as though your heart for people and your recognition of who you're talking to and and your ability to listen to their answer also fall into your superpowers because you've mentioned the customer, the consumer a number of times, right? So your recognition of who you're talking to and who matters. It isn't you're not money motivated, you're heart motivated for the person you're you're listening to. Right. And I think that is rare, but I think that's probably the the beating heart behind so much of what you do and the success of what you do. I think about how with build-a bear, you know, we get to put the heart in in the bear, right? Or or in whatever animal we're choosing, right? Um, I gave build-a-bears to when I got married in in 2002, I put, I did the build-a-bears for both our flower girl and our ring bearer. And it was so sweet to give that to them. And then my daughter was a flower girl, and she was given the very same. And it was just such a neat full circle moment. But actually, it's interesting. You mentioned that one of the first things you wanted to be was a civil rights attorney. That was one of the first things I wanted to be too. I wanted to go work for Morris D's at the civil uh civil southern poverty law firm because I grew up in Los Angeles, and there were so many civil rights issues at the time when I was recognizing how unfair the world seemed to be, and I didn't like it at all, and I ended up going a journalism path. But um we have a lot in common. Yes, we we definitely do. But you know, I mean, we're friends on Facebook too, so I I recognize that we have a lot in common in many areas. But let's talk about the Del Mar Divine. So tell me about that.
SPEAKER_01:Delmar Divine uh is uh I'm not saying I ever dreamt that either, but um Michael Brown died in August of 2014, and um the next day I went over to uh Ferguson or Gent, wherever it was such a crossroads where he was. And I sat on a hill with a bunch of young black uh children. And I was just sitting there. I needed the peace. I needed to know, you know, why did this happen to a young teenage boy with so much future? And, you know, now 11 years later, he probably he could have owned his own HVAC company. That's why he was going to school. He was got had gotten into the HVAC program, and he that that was what he wanted to be. And he was just a kid, you know, walking across the street. Yeah, maybe he stole a pack of cigarettes or something, I'm not sure. But like all most of us know the the experience of that, and our parents see us, what's young enough when you do it, your parents see it and say, We're going back there, and you're gonna say you're sorry, and you're gonna give that back to the um it's sort of part of a life lesson that you have to have. And um, I was sitting there talking to the kids, and I realized that these kids they're mumbling a lot to each other. They didn't, they weren't rude to me. I was saying, you know, I'm sure they wondered who the hell is that? What's she doing there? But they were very nice, and I listened to their conversation for a long time. And um, this one of the young men um I said, Look, is there anything I can do to help? And he said, Well, you see that car over there, and he pointed to a car that had was sitting on on um cinder blocks. He said, That's my mama's car. And her tires were stolen, and that was three weeks ago, and a policeman has never come to write the police report so she can get the insurance. And he said, But they walk follow a teenage boy, you know, out of a quick shop, and you know, here we are. Here we are. And I thought it was a really astute statement, by the way. And I said, Well, I think I can help with that. There's tons of police around here. Maybe we can find one of them to write the report. And um I never heard, you know, we know we didn't exchange cards or anything like that. Um uh, but you realize that there's little just little simple things get in the way of of people, average people doing the big things. I don't know, he might have wanted to be a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, who knows. But um then we were talking to some of the other kids I was talking to, they said, I said, What did you do this summer? And they looked at me like, well, hung out. What are we supposed to do? And they and I realized that my friends' kids of the same age were going to summer programming, they might be at, you know, and picked out the university they want to go to and they go to a summer program there. They have access to so much information. The same information exists and is available to these other children, but if you don't know it exists, you don't know where to go to look for it. Right. I went back to our office and um my my assistant and I said, Ollie, like, you know, what do you do for, you know, what did you do when you were a kid for summer school? And she grew up in Kirk Kirkwood, she said, Oh, you know, there were the why, where there were tons of programs. And we're gonna go, we're gonna find out what the summer camps are. We're gonna build a platform for all kids to have access to the information, all parents. Got it. And uh that was blueprint4.com. And the first summer, which was 2015, we had 3,000 or so camps. Now we have well over 10,000, and we um always marketed it in North in the city in North County. Uh we it's for anybody, but we made it so that that the people who didn't have the information would have access to that information. And then we have a camp submit, which are invited to, you can come to um in a um, it's in September coming up in a couple weeks, and we bring all the camp providers together and we talk about what went on in the summer, finding common you know, issues and opportunities, and what can we do to solve that problem together? And they never did that, they didn't have like a consortium of summer camps. Um, and we have, I mean, that's a lot of camps. And the average summer camp is about$250. So you know, you have two kids that if you were putting them in camp all summer long, that would have cost you a lot of money. So people pick and choose something that's gonna have, you know, really um there if it's sports or if it's science, and we have all those things. And prior to Blueprint, we didn't necessarily have as many in North City and County as we should have, based on the aging, the population. But now we do people, you know, when we have the data from the the app, we can we give them all uh all this information and they can we say, you know, here's how many people were looking for an art camp in 63136, but there was only two. You missed an opportunity, you know, and then the next year they'll adjust accordingly. Okay, and we'll help them with the marketing, you know, because we'll push it so that everybody knows that. Um, but we have enormous resources in St. Louis. Enormous. And we've talked to other cities about it. People have called us and said, um, you know, could we let license that for our city? But they don't really even know what they they aren't willing to go out and we went and to all these camps. We made a list of all these camps. Okay. And thankfully, um, Michael Brown did not die in vain. He opened my eyes up to um, you know, a missing link in our community, and it's helped everyone. It's not just help kids in city and north county because parents use it from all over St. Louis, and we do we help them market their businesses, we help them um the mostly it's for parents and and children, but the uh we go to school fairs, they now have camp fairs in North County that we co-sponsor. They used to be out in West County, but nobody set up tables for the parents in North County as if they didn't have any money and they didn't have any kids, and they had both. So how can we um those are that's just a symbol of other issues that people have and they have the same desires, but they just don't have they don't know it exists. They don't know it exists.
SPEAKER_02:And and I think that you're you're because there are if you don't know what you don't know, then it's those kids are left to just fend for themselves, but they'd love to be involved in in the programs. Yeah, is there is this something that if someone was listening right now and they wanted to get involved or they wanted to help or assist with the work that you're doing, is it something that you people could get involved in helping? Yes, okay.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna give you one a brand new one that we're working on right now. Okay. We're really um moving quickly because it's um associated with Halloween. But when I was a little kid, and maybe when you were two, uh there was a program called Trigger Treat for UNICEF.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And it put UNICEF on the map. The first one was in 1950 in Philadelphia, and they raised 17.3 million. I remember and then it spread around the country and now it's sort of I think not so popular. But we're gonna do trick-or-tree here in St. Louis, okay, across St. Louis, so that kids can trick-or-treat and get candy, but they also can get coins and and we're we've designed a box and we're gonna do all this distribution through the school districts, the libraries, the boys and girls clubs. Because I want children to realize they can make a difference. And these trees are not free. Uh, the trees that we're gonna need to plant in North St. Louis are not free, but they're not hugely expensive. So actually, a box of pennies would be enough to buy a seedling tree somewhere and get it plant, a good tree, the tree we want to have, and uh replace that tree. And when these children grow up, that tree will be tall again like it was a few months ago before the tornado. And they can say to their children, I did that. And I I did that. I felt like that. I felt like when I finally I it put UNICEF on the map, but also I planted trees in Israel. And when I went to Israel for the first time, I many years ago in the 70s, I saw my trees. Uh and it made me feel, you know, like I I had done something for the world. Because you you're a child, and most of the time they just treat you like a child and they let you have fun. And but it is fun to do good things. I love selling Girl Scout cookies. Yes. So there are many things, but if you're not in that in that program, because it doesn't exist in your neighborhood, then you might not get a chance. But this is something every kid can do. And I've talked to several superintendents of schools the last few weeks. I came up with the idea. I I talked to Forest Park and I talked to Relief Missouri, which is um where all most of the trees come from that are on the cities and streets, and everybody was like for it. Let's do it. Okay. So we're um so you're the first one. I haven't this, I haven't had any public announcement about it. Yeah, but we are gonna put it out there, and and obviously we have a short window of time to get all the information out there. So we've been feverishly working on the marketing and working on um the how we're gonna distribute the products and collect the money. That's the hardest part of all. Okay. Isn't isn't is getting the boxes out to the kids and the teachers and using it as a learning moment. Okay. Because I remember my grandpa took a quarter at one time for me and he made it into five nickels, and he kept four of the nickels, he gave me one. So we're gonna put this in your bank so that you can go to college, you can go to um, and he hardly spoke English, you know, to to give it away to charity to do uh something else. This one you can, this five, you can go buy a piece of candy. Oh, this nickel that I'm giving you. So, you know, like there were things, lessons that you learn in your life, if you just stop to take a breath, that you would realize were preparing you for the life that you live today. And um a lot of times we just think, oh, that's mom's stuff or that's dad's stuff or grandpa's stuff. What do I need to know that for? But it does seep into you, thank heavens, and it does turn out to make you um a part of you of the person that you are and gives you a structure that you may not need at 10, but you might need it 20, and you might need at 30, and you certainly need it 70 or 80 or 90, um, living your life, because that that's the hardest part of life, isn't the isn't the youthful part. It's really when you might be older and not healthy and really need to, you know, deal with a system that isn't necessarily in your favor. Um so you better better be tough. And um, so I think that for me it's always been about kids. I mean, I was a kid, and uh my parents were my mother would say to me, I'd say, Havert, mom, what what is this? She's look it up in the world book. And that was like the Google of our time. Right. And I'd go and get the world book, and oh mom, of course, thanks. And I'd go get the world book and I'd get lost in it because every page had a it had a smell, it had a certain feel. There were shiny pages. Yeah. And when you opened it, it was like this, and I just keep going. And exploring. And and on most of the projects she told me to look up in the world book, I got an A on because I've I really dug in. It was like being, you know, a s a story for journalism. You're you're really getting, you're looking, doing research. I loved research. I love knowing how things work, even though that wouldn't be necessarily my career. I want I I still am wondering about how do they build underwater tunnels and how do the airplanes fly, and you know, I am insatiably curious about things all the time. So it's the fun of it, you know, when I meet a young person who's that's what they're doing. I said, How did you decide to do that? And we get in this long conversation, and then we have a relationship because they told me something I had no idea about, and I've always wondered. And um, so it's it's also when you're curious, there's a million things you can talk about with people. Um, and honestly, it you can relate to people that may not think you can relate to you, or they don't think that they could be a friend with you. And I have so many friends that I've made in the last um since starting Build-A-Bear, of course, but even since then with the project on Blueprint and living more times in the city of St. Louis and North County with new friends and solving, trying to solve problems together because the inequities are there, and we can pretend they're not, but more women die of breast cancer in in the black community than die in the white community because of just because they didn't get early detection. And yet we look where we live. We live with the best hospitals, three systems of hospitals that are really high quality, but they didn't necessarily, there were all the reasons that are historic, didn't realize it. And now we're working as a team of women. Um for this will be our second full year of bringing all those agencies together so that we can fill the gaps if there's a gap. We can work with the doctors and the uh, and we're working with uh uh Gateway to Hope, which is a really wonderful nonprofit that supports women who may not have the money or the insurance to f to go the whole route on it if they find out they have breast cancer. How do they get to the um to all the things that they're going to need? And that is an amazing organization led by a young woman who is a friend of mine, but we met through doing work in community work. She was working at Boeing, she was the chief of staff to the president of Boeing at the time, and we met, we had lunch a couple times, and I knew that she was a mover and a shaker.
SPEAKER_02:Look at your beautiful heart. I mean, it's it's everywhere. You like I feel as though when I was working in the recovery space, I would answer the phone, how can I help? Right? Like this is Danielle, how can I help? And I feel as though that how can I help drives you as well. Yeah. Like you see you instantly caught into inequities and think, how can I fix this? How can I, how can I make this better? How can I use whatever connections I have? And this goes a little bit to the conversation we were having before. You said, like, how can I take one in one and not make it two, but make it 100?
SPEAKER_01:And Del Barnavine, um, the next year, actually, that that fall, I was the board chair of KIP St. Louis, and we're opening a school in um the west end of St. Louis. And I had never really walked around that neighborhood, and I found all these beautiful homes that met the neighbors, and the neighbors were really helping us, like being like grandparents on demand, and they were great. And one of them said to me, Why don't you look around the neighborhood? I see that you always go right because I live, you know, in the Clayton, U City area. And why don't you take a different turn and go see if there's a house you see that you might want to buy and we'll help you remodel it. I turned around, I turned another corner, and there was this hospital building. They were just nailing the for sale sign in. And I was, I knew instantly what it could be. It was another light bulb moment. And I called Dennis Lauer at Cortex and I said, Dennis, why don't you buy this building and turn it into a Cortex West for nonprofits? Because during this process of after Michael Brown, I met so many people that I didn't know in so many different nonprofits, and I realized that everybody was starting a nonprofit to solve a problem, and maybe there was another one that already existed, and we could work together for the one plus one could equal a hundred. And um, but people didn't really work that way. They didn't uh they didn't know they didn't do the research on competitor, and in the in the real business world, you look at your competitors, but they didn't necessarily do that. So I thought we could build a building where we could bring as many together as possible. And this building was quite big, it was about 500,000 square feet. So I knew that that teachers, nurses, social workers don't make all that much money. We could build really great apartments with all the amenities that that more expensive apartments would have because the property was cheaper for us where we bought it, and uh we could have a mixed living and working environment. So it has a hundred and fifty right now, phase one had 150 apartments. We have about 40 nonprofits that work in the building in health, uh, education, and community development. And then we have uh conference spaces that we share. Uh I told you we have a podcast room, so they a lot of them use our podcast room, and then uh um we have some retail. Well we brought we we spent a lot of time with the neighbors because Builder Bear took nine months from idea to reality. This took nine years, uh very complicated uh financial structure. But um with what the neighbors told us is we need a bank, we need a pharmacy, we need an urgent care. And I l I lived just three miles down Del Mar. Wow, and there were four that I could walk to, you know, but in their neighborhood they didn't have that. So we went out looking for those, and I know how to do that too from retail, and we found some great partners to come in. St. Louis Community Credit Union was our first tenant. They signed the lease before anybody else. They said, we want to be there as soon as you open. Right. We'll we'll open up right after. And they've been amazing partners. Uh young man, I read about him in in I think St. Louis magazine, that had come back to St. Louis to open up this pharmacy for the minority communities, all minority communities, people with certain health care uh needs that can't just walk into a pharmacy and get what they need. Um, personal that he had seen when he was in college at the University of North Carolina, and it just had stayed with him. He went on to be a teacher, um, teach for America, and then he went to graduate school and got his PhD. And um I said, Well, we have a place for you. And that sort of turned the corner for him because now he had a place. So now he had to take the idea from idea on paper in a story that he told a reporter to reality. And we're great partners. I mean, we're not, I'm not an owner of his business, but we are partners. He's an important part of our building. And um, he went and worked with all the different uh urgent cares and he brought in urgent care there from SSM. So the neighborhood loved that. And then we have a deli. The neighborhood used to have like 45 delis food markets uh when the turn of the 19th to the 20th century when the building was first built, it was an immigrant Jewish neighborhood, but an immigrant broadly more immigrant, so lots of immigrants coming from lots of different countries. So they had all kinds of different food on Del Mar. Um nothing now in this particular area or wasn't, but but we worked really hard and we've attracted a lot of restaurants back to Del Mar. And um they're on the in the maker district or in uh where we are. Okay. Uh and then we also have um uh to the Delhi Divine is there, Ben Paramba. He was excited, he wanted to open a deli. He said, I heard you want a deli, let me do it. And uh we partnered with him too. I mean, literally, you know, you just they don't just walk in, you have to do wheel and deal and get the right price and help with the build out. So I feel really that I supported some entrepreneurs there as well. Um and that bank, St. Louis Community Credit Union, has uh changed our neighborhood. They invest in the neighbors, they invest, they've invested in home improvement loans, in uh auto loans, in small business loans, and it has to be a local bank that knows you as a neighbor, but there was no bank there to know them as a neighbor, so they got discriminated against just by not having a bank. And then we know of all the other kinds of discriminations that happened. So um this project has just beyond my wildest expectation. I had big plans for it, and I knew that it would be good, but I wasn't sure it would be good so fast. I mean, we're 100% occupied, and we have been since we opened. And phase two is gonna open um hopefully next year. We we're starting at the fourth quarter, and it was the nursing school and the nursing dorms and the uh cafeteria for the it was the kitchen and um main maintenance building. And so that's all gonna be um a real support system, uh 81 low-income apartments for um working people, and uh there are all kinds of qualifications in in housing that you can come up with, but we want to support people who do work and teachers, nurses, social workers, believe it or not, make those low salaries that fall into low income. What a shame. Anyway, um and we build quality apartments. Everybody has a ri has a washer dryer, they have disposal, microwave, you know, everything that you could possibly want. They're not gigantic, but they're really nice. And we have a swimming pool, we have a gym uh fitness center. We're building in this new part, a new uh gymnasium that can house all kinds of activities for the community and the tenants uh and uh a bigger conference in space. And the gym was one of those old-fashioned, like elementary school gyms, but it was a nursing school for adults. So it has a stage, you know, okay, and those really heavy old velvet curtains that used to have where we're changing all that, and then it has basketball, a basketball court. So we're um gonna open up some more youth activities. We have a lot of activities for seniors, but we don't have a lot of activities for youth, and there really aren't a lot of children, but this will be a way to attack attract children uh to the neighborhood, pi people with children, and also bring them from the local high schools that are around to um after-school basketball. Uh, we're gonna build pickleball courts, we're gonna have we have outdoor um uh tables with checker um chess tables, and we're gonna have a movie, outdoor movies, so people from the neighborhood can have all kinds of enjoyment. We do have a park right near us that we where they do Shakespeare in the park and all that, but it and we have Forest Park right around the corner. But this is like more like their space. Right. And honestly, um right on the corner of of Clara and Belt, when I drive home every night, there's a s right now this kids are coming home from school, and there's a school a uh gentleman volunteers to be help the kids off the bus and make sure they cross the street because it's a busy little corner. And every day I think he might wait for me to leave. We have this relationship, and I think about that. When I was a little girl, I used to wave to my neighbor who I she could see me in the window when I came in the door. He reminds me of that person, and and um they were building an Amaron substation to up the ante for the electricity in the neighborhood for the whole neighborhood. And um, all the workmen we wave at each other on the way into work. It's a beautiful day in our neighborhood. I even hum Mr. Rogers' song, I am so proud of what we've accomplished, but I'm proud of the neighbors that they shared with me what their dreams and hopes were because they weren't that different than mine. And um, no different actually. And but they just didn't know how to go about it. So together, um, we've brought our the neighborhood organizations meet at the Delmar Divine, we bring them together so we do things together like Delish on Del Mar, which happens on Del Mar October 17th. We do that together, the Maker District and our district, which is where Delmar Divine is, but Del Mar Main Street organizational group and uh others, and we need to do that more than ever since the tornado um that really torpedoed our area. Right. Uh and um well, we we've recovered recovered many of the businesses on Del Bar have not yet recovered. So we're working to bring people back and see the ones that have, and don't think we were all wiped off the base face of the map. We weren't, and then help the proceeds help the ones that are still digging themselves out.
SPEAKER_02:You are involved in so many different things. What is the key to staying on top of it or to feeling as though you have your hands in all of it and feeling like you're making a difference in each and every one of those those areas?
SPEAKER_01:Well, the real reason is the children. Um children are um the future of our country and of our city, and if we can't help the children be as successful as possible, and we have a lot of things in the way of that, um the then there's not a future for St. Louis because the the kids will leave and go somewhere else if they can't find what they want, and we're not in a growing population at this point. We have to really work hard at that. So um I do it for them because people did it for me. I uh who who knew what I was gonna be when I grew up. Yeah, I just had wanted to be everything. You know, at some point in my life I wanted to be everything. And um, and I'm doing exactly the work I'm meant to do. And at the time I'm meant to do it. It is joyful work, and joy is really what what should fuel us and hope, as you well know, that that we can make it better, that we can individually make a difference. But if you're just sitting and you know, wringing your hands and saying, Oh, whoever is me, and St. Louis is so big, it's the worst this and the worst that, and I'm not from here. I love St. Louis. I moved here uh and bought a house in Lafayette Square that I could have never afforded in Washington, D.C. where I came from, and made great friends because everybody was redoing their houses and um it's so many connections started there. And I met my husband, and you know, we have a great life together. And also I want to throw this out too, because um you don't really know, you can only plan so many things in your life, and I'm a reasonably good planner, but um in November my husband had a stroke, and luckily for us, we live in St. Louis, Missouri, where there's incredible health care, especially at Washington University School of Medicine. And um, it's the hardest job I've ever had, and it's the one I'm most prepared for because you have to be a bulldog in the system. And my I went to the University of Georgia, so I'm a bulldog all the way. And um, you have to know how to negotiate, navigate, and stand up for yourself and ask questions and take notes, and you know, thank God we have otter because I can get it all down and you know, while I'm lit listening. And um, he's made a remarkable, you know, improvements, but it's not easy. And you know, it's hard work. And what about the people that don't know all the people to get in the door, or don't know, can't don't know what insurance pays for or what it doesn't pay for, and may not have insurance, although Medicare um does cover all these things for the most part. Um, but you have to know how to navigate that system, and how to advocate for yourself. Yeah, definitely. And if you're a single person and this happens to you, who navigates for you or your family lives in another state? And so, and it's a lonely time because all the things that my the day before he had the stroke, he rode his bike 20 miles in Forest Park. He was a very healthy person. And all of a sudden now he can't do that. So that was his out, his his relaxation was you know, going out and going to the park. And he's also an incredible entrepreneur and civic-minded person. He started Casa de Salud and he started um the Mosaic Project to bring more immigrants to uh St. Louis. Um he has out on the board of SLU for a long time. Uh amazing person. And I, you know, we we divided and conquered, worked in the criminal justice system, making sure that children don't get caught up in that um as best we can. Um because when you turn over the rock of poverty, um there are you know a million spiders and their nets are knotted up, their their uh webs, and you have to help them unknot it. And it's housing, homelessness, the criminal justice system, the education system, the healthcare system, the mental health care system, um, so many things that that cause those those knots. And um and people just give up. And uh we have a lot of agencies, we have uh, you know, over 20,000 agencies that are helping people, but you know, you don't know, and sometimes it's pride, it's a lot of other things that keep you from the tools that could help you. And so we all have to listen so that we can lead that person. We might not know of everything, but we might know of one thing, or we have a friend who may know that, right? And we can lead that person towards a better um up, you know, connection for them. And we have everything in St. Louis that you could possibly want, probably more because of Washington University and St. Louis University, that are have a lot of research behind them that are really solid, you know, programs, and uh the world should know about them. But so that keeps me going, and actually I've learned so much in this process, especially with my husband Bob, because you know, we actually he actually knew that he had a stroke from a a program that we had seen that was produced here in St. Louis called Brain Works that studied four different brain injury brain um I guess diseases is the right word to use. And the first story that they told, these two doctors wrote these plays.
unknown:Dr.
SPEAKER_01:Luthart and Dr. Kim, they wrote these plays called about these was about a stroke, and a man who had a stroke in his life as the stroke happened, and then afterwards. So he recognized the symptoms. And he recognized the symptoms, and he called me right away and he said, I think I'm having a stroke, and I was really almost home. And we got him to the hospital really quickly. And um, but he still had a a serious stroke, and um, he's still in a wheelchair, but he's doing so much better, and I know that he's going to be able to do things that the doctors maybe won't even tell you because they don't want you to get your hopes up to high. But he's a hard worker and he's a physically fit person. So he knows that exercise is really important. That's what he loves, is the PT and the OT, you know, get up and do that. So um, you know, it's been nine, almost 10 months, and um who would have thought it would have been that long? I mean, they told us it would be long, but we didn't believe it because you know we're both, you know, movers and shakers and get up and do everything on it. But it is, it does take time, and it's another thing that sort of humbles you about um what else is out there, and that's another thing that we have that's so incredible in St. Louis, our healthcare system. We have world-class healthcare here, and we should be telling the world about it because if I were gonna live anywhere, I'm glad I live here because I can have access to the probably number one or two healthcare system in the country at Washington University School of Medicine in certain fields, but SLU also is right around the corner, and they work together in many ways to you know help us find the cure to some really crazy things that are still out there. So I am um I've learned a lot and I sat there with him and I wrote, kept a journal about what were the opportunities, not what were the problems, what were the opportunities because I saw so much you know, things that were wasteful, things that you know uh people do because they have to do it quick. And um that I thought could be um you know opportunities for new business models for people, how AI could come in and make the nurse's job easier, a lot of ways. And um so we're working on that. You mentioned hope before. How do you define hope? Hope for me is like a future, you know, that that there's someplace beyond today where it whatever it is that you're worried about can be resolved or get better. Or um, like, you know, when you get sick and have a cold, you know, you're not gonna be have a cold forever. There's, you know, I can't wait till I get better, this cold is over. It kind of is that way. Like it isn't permanent. You know, it it's the things that are wrong are generally not permanent. And until, you know, your senior most years or you have a really terrible car accident, you can be in charge of your life. And um, you can make better decisions. And sometimes we're just kids longer than we should be. You know, we're we're doing kid-like thinking instead of adult thinking. And there's a good thing about kid think, as I told you earlier, it's creativity, it's that you if anything's possible, why mommy? Why can't we go here? Why can't we do this? Yeah, why? Like that's what we need to be using in St. Louis. Why can't we fix this? Why can't we all volunteer? Why can't we do and not to be a temporary thing because the tornado is, you know, three or four months ago. No, we have to keep doing it because um St. Louis deserves it, and there is a future for us. It's a fantastic city. Um and we we probably have the low the best um cost of living of any great place in the center of the country that you could possibly be. And in fact, a lot of industries exist in Missouri that exist here because they can get to other, they can sell their products to other states at a relatively low freight rate because they can get it there pretty quickly. Um that's why Amazon has so many warehouses here, because they can uh get stuff to people really quickly from St. Louis. And we don't even think we don't even tell that story. Amazon knows more about us than we know, of course, because we buy from them and know they know every little detail about us. But um it's just such an opportunity to be here and to be working on helping St. Louis be all that it can be. I love St. Louis. I do think St. Louis has a forever, and I'm hopeful for what that forever will be.
SPEAKER_02:What would you say to someone in terms of if they're sitting in that spot where they think, I have a dream, I think there's something more I can be, and they're listening to your story and they're thinking, wow, there's there's nothing this woman can't do. Like she's she thinks it and she does it.
SPEAKER_01:No, I there are a lot of things I can't do, but I know somebody who could help me do it. Okay. And that is really important. You do not have to do it alone. There is an ecosystem here in St. Louis that is open to people who are very friendly. And how do you get to that person that's going to be the friendliest? Sometimes you have to ask if you do you know somebody. I mean, I I'm constantly speaking to people, and we'll def if I can't direct them to the right person, then no one can. All the years I've been in St. Louis, I know a lot of people. And that's also very joyful. My husband and I get a thrill out of doing that, you know, of introducing, somebody tells us they need something, you know, oh, do you know a doctor for this, or do you know a place I can buy this? And we do. So we make that connection, and that is such a simple thing. Sometimes it takes five minutes, and um, sometimes it might take five hours, but for the most part, it's one of the simplest. You don't have to do it. You're passing them on to the expert. And um and then connecting people to the resources for entrepreneurship. We have we have programs in St. Louis that start in in childhood. We have my friend Arielle Biggs, her St. Louis Biz Kids. She works with young children. Her son Mikey was an entrepreneur at eight years old. That's when I first met him. And now he has uh, I think a dozen uh vending machines all around town, and he's uh starting to sell them off so he can start other vending machines, kind of a it's not a scheme or pyramid scheme, but teaching other kids that they can own a business at 10 years old, 12 years old. And his mother drove him everywhere at the beginning to buy the sodas at Costco and put them in the machines. But you know, he has a pretty good nest egg already, and God bless him, you know. And I met him when he was my height, and he had a little briefcase and it had his name Mikey, and his mother is an amazing woman to, and she does this for other families too, to help them inspire their children with their talents. Um, all the way up through Arch Grants and all the way up to Washiou School of Medicine, where we have tremendous entrepreneurs inventing cures all the time and and uh tools, uh, you know, equipment that might help a patient walk. Um unbelievable uh ecosystem here. I'm not sure there's another city like this. And I'm sure I know there's not another Arch Grants because we've we've checked that one out. And I've asked kids that call me from other states to look in their town and see if there's the right kind of um uh nurturing program for an entrepreneur, and not doesn't matter what age you are, but somebody that you know, where they have a small business group or that people that work with them, we have a lot in St. Louis, like everything, we have a lot. We just don't people just don't know how to access it. So we have to make it easier. But it's a big system and and uh it it works in so many different ways. So you don't have to do anything alone. I didn't do build-a bear alone. Katie and Jack, you know, gave me the idea of by saying, we can make this. And then what do you do with that? And then you could I could I was definitely determined and I knew how to do it. I've been in retail a long time, but I didn't do it alone. I don't know, I'm not a CFO. I hired a CFO, I'm not a store operations, I never was in store operations, I hired a person to do that. You that's what you do is you build the plan, it's like a giant canvas, and you let other people paint on it to their heart's content, so they can they can be the person, the CFO they want to be, the store planner they want to be. And uh the other thing that was really important was to find, make sure that there was somebody to succeed me. A lot of entrepreneurs are not good at that. Uh I have the best successor anybody could even hope for in Sharon Price John. We're friends, we talk a lot, we you know, she she had to do a lot of things her own way, and some things I agreed with and some things I didn't, but I said, let's try it, why not? And some of the things that worked and some didn't, but Build-A-Bear is a thriving company, and she has done, she has lived the dream for me, so that I Build-A-Bear is going on for a much longer time and we're gonna soon be st celebrating our 30th anniversary. Congratulations. I am so proud of what the team today has accomplished, and there's many people that were there from the s almost the start of Build-A-Bear, but there's also a lot of new people that came to work in a company that values them and wants them to be successful and nurtures them and teaches them different aspects of the business if they want to learn it. And um, I'm so proud of what Sharon and the team have have done, and I can just you know stand back and enjoy it. And I get to do some fun things for Builder Bear, but you know, it is mostly I get to hug the kids and go to places where there's a lot of children and just watch what we've done. And it's it's not brain science in the sense of what the doctors at at Washu are doing, but it is a a brain different kind of brain science, a hug. A hug is worth a million words, and that's really what St. Louis does pretty well when we see a tragedy, but we don't do it all the time when um we should be continuing these projects. And one thing, um, you know, when they had that shooting at the Annunciation Um Catholic school, that day at um Mall of America store, which is only about 10 minutes away, people went to make bears to bring to the children and make bears to bring to the and I could see it on television that our bears, we can recognize our bears from across. I can too. That that they were doing their job. They were they were they that's what they wanted to. I know it sounds like I'm crazy, but they want to be there for that child, for that adult, for that that sad time and that happy time. That's what they're there for. They're you they they you can tell them your deepest dark at sea for you, they're not gonna share them with anybody. You can tell them how sad you are, they're not gonna laugh at you or make think you're being silly, they're just gonna be there for you. And um, they have been for over well over a hundred years. The teddy bear was invented in 1902, and they will be forever because nothing can replace a stuffed animal. It doesn't have to be a teddy bear anymore. It can be a kitty cat, a dog, a Pokemon, a Star Wars. I mean, that's what Bilderbear has brought to the table. We've reimagined what a huggable friend can be. And it doesn't matter whether that frog wears a wedding dress or a baseball outfit. It doesn't matter. It's the child's imagination. And that's what we love, love, love seeing every single day. And we hope that they'll remember those experiences. And we we, you know, the first children that came to make bears in our store now work for us, or they're bringing their own children in to build a bear. That's amazing. And we get letters about that. That this I I wanted it to be as good as it was when I was a kid, and it was even better. You know, that that is that is joy too. But I get joy in in multiple things, but it's still a hug. That's uh the Del Mar Divine is a hug for a neighborhood. The other work that we're doing at the trees, I guess you could call me a tree hugger, we're we're putting together a program that children, children and their families can make a difference by just collecting pennies and dimes and nickels that we can all put together and add to the collaboration of bringing these trees back to St. Louis. Where will those boxes be? We're going to distribute them in many different places, libraries and um schools and uh local businesses. So you'll be hearing about and people will drop off their coins. We haven't figured that part out yet, but yes, they will. They'll bring them to a central location, and we're working on that with um a couple of uh uh neighborhood. We want them to be in the neighborhood. So um everybody's afraid to have all the responsibility for all this money. I said, I hope it's as much as you think it is. Right, but I think we'll figure that out. Perfect. And where can people learn more about that? We have a web strip website, uh trick or tree stl.com, but it's doesn't have much there yet. Okay. Every day it'll have new new information, and we are um uh just really putting together all the materials. When I leave here, I'm going to work with the the printer on the boxes that we're gonna distribute for free to everybody. Um I remember my UNICEF box. I think I have it in some box at home somewhere. I'm sure I still have mine somewhere. You know, and uh, you know, we'll see how it can go. But I mean when I called uh Missouri, I didn't know her, Meredith Perkins, who runs Missouri Relief Missouri, we had an instant connection because we both cared about this particular issue that we have in St. Louis. She've been working on it. I called Leslie Hofarth at at Forest Park Forever, and she was so open to it, and her team was really open to it. And everybody that we're talking to, we're asking for some donations to help us with the printing and some of the materials. Everybody said yes so far. I mean, people want to do good, and they just don't, they don't have to do it themselves, and they maybe didn't have the idea that I had. And I'm it's you know, we're putting some resources from our foundation behind it just to get it going. Seed found, you know, the a team I hired a woman to work for us for three months to help with marketing, and she's phenomenal, and she's doing a great job already. She started on Monday. So, you know, you can do these things pretty quickly. In fact, sometimes the faster you do it, the the better. Better it is. And Delish on Del Mar, we did in a short time last year. We're doing it again, and um, we'll tell more people. But we had 3,000 people show up for Delish on Del Bar last year. Dancing in the streets, sitting in the tables, strangers buying at the little pop-up shops where there were kids and adults with their pop-up products. So you can you can lace entrepreneurship, um, music, talent, uh, city development, community development, all together in in just about anything that you do in St. Louis pretty easily. And you were sitting here in the Grand Center area, and what the Kransbergs have built here for the arts is just something I admire. They're friends of mine. They motivate me every day just to know that that this is possible. And the more things that we do like that, what they did and what we've done, and what other people are doing, there's my friends Ken and and and um Beverly uh in uh the Delwood area that built R. They're just amazing people. And you you find there's more of you out there than you think, and then you have so many more people to be hugging, you know. It's uh there's so many people that that are doing amazing things in St. Louis that we're small enough that you can know them. But we're also small enough that when you do something, it's gonna make a difference, and we're big enough that when we when we do it, it matters. Right. You know, so uh it's this is a perfect city actually for you know so much opportunity and uh uh of change, not just for St. Louis, but to teach other people. In fact, I got a um uh I get phone calls from all over the country for people to come and see Del Mar Nevine, as if it was some impossible idea. But we just took an old hospital and turned it into, you know, a still a caring place. It'll be a caring place forever, it just won't be a hospital. Um and I don't think it's fancy, but a lot of people say to me, Oh, it's fancy, but it it really isn't. It's it's a sim basic building, but it was a really strong structure. So when the tornado came right down Del Mar, we we didn't lose our building at all. We just lost the air conditioners on the top of the roof. But um, that's just replaceable. Um, so many homes that had been um not really repaired, not with tuck good tuck pointing, or not tuck point in a long time, just you know, disintegrated in the wind and the trees so sad. Um but they'll be back and and it gives all of us an opportunity to buy one tree, which maybe is 30 bucks or something, yeah, like or less. Um think about that. That's something you could do, and that tree will be here standing and growing, you know, hundreds of years from now, just like those trees were there for us to enjoy.
SPEAKER_02:So you mentioned that you've done everything in the exact right time that you're supposed to be doing it. Is there anything that you've done that falls into the the category of like this is what I'm most proud of?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, so many things. Um, so many things. I uh I I'm really proud of how I evolved. You know, that how I um because my mother was a social worker, even though she was an untrained social worker and she wanted me to be a she was a socialist and I wanted to be a capitalist, you know, kind of thing. But I am my mother's daughter. And I'm also my father's daughter, who was a small business person, and he never said he was an entrepreneur. He used to say it when he wrote What's Your Occupation? Small business owner. He was elect electrician, and then he was became a salesman. I am their dream. That's my grandparents came to this country for me, and they didn't even know I wasn't even they didn't even have their own children then. They came for me, and I have tried to to live that life that I think they wanted, and I didn't even really know them. They they hardly spoke English, and they died young, and so I was just a little child. So I just really think that the um they would I want my mother died young too. She died at 55 years old. She was an amazing force of nature. And I I went to be that capitalist still. I still wanted to do that, but I've also done the work that she would have done too, and maybe uh not quite as good in some places and other places because I have different interests uh really strongly, but also my teachers, they played such an incredible role in my life. And you don't always we didn't have social media, so you couldn't get you didn't have their phone number. Couldn't you know Mrs. or Mr. So-and-so, but I'm friends with a lot of my teachers, by the way, because they're never that much older than you. Right. And um uh they're five or six years older than you, but you think they're a lot older than you when you're in school, and especially your high school teachers. And I am still in touch with a lot of my teachers. I'm in touch with my friends that I grew up with. We have a very unique growing up experience because we lived in Miami, Florida, and we had this incredible influx of Cuban refugees to Miami as children, and we all got to be friends with new people, and that was our job. We were we were supposed to be friendly, we were supposed to be helpful and show them where the lockers were and show them. And uh and we talk about this a lot because we have these Zoom reunions all the time that we go together. We had 1,200 people in my senior class. We don't have 1,200 people on these calls, but um to be able to be friends with people who you can't hide from, they know who you are because they were sitting next to you in the fifth grade. Right. Um, you know, but just all that blends together, and it's me, it's not any one thing that's made me who I am today. It's all those things added together, and that's what I try to tell children who I know are under stress that this is a learn, this is part of the experience of life. And if you chalk it up to, you know, education, and then do the what do you want to be when you grow up right now? What is it what is it that you're thinking of? And what kind of things can we do for you that will get you on that track? And I think all of us in St. Louis, it's one opportunity we really have, is to allow those children, especially high school kids, to be interns in our businesses to and paid interns to see they are brilliant, by the way. We have summer interns every summer. We have learned so much from our interns. And um they're not all the college students who have a certain level of different competency than the high school students. We had a 16-year-old this summer, an unbelievable contribution to our business and uh to our family foundation. And we give them real projects and we make them write that out on their resume, and they always underestimate how much impact they had because they're kids. Right. And you know, you have to help kids realize that they really did something. When you were telling me about your son who is a broadcaster, and I'm thinking, wow, I was a journalism major. I don't think I could have done that. And I was a little bit older than him, and I think, well, maybe the same age at the time. I was a great writer, but I wasn't necessarily uh a and I love sports, but I don't think I could have ever been a sports commentator. And I think it's so fast and so furious, and you gotta know all this history, and you gotta know the players, and you gotta have it all in your head. And I'm I just admire that a a young person is so focused on doing something like that. So that is just interesting to me. And I I I want to kind I when I find I'd love to meet him and just kind of ask him a few questions because I want to know what makes that brain. You know, I I feel the same way. I want to I want to know. And and I think that's the kind of curiosity that people how you get to know people mean you get to know them, and then you're they're your neighbor, they're not your a stranger. Um you know two things about them, and now you can feel a connection to them. And when people come into Dalmardi and come to meet me or come to see the building, and when they leave, I say, Can I give you a hug? And they always say yes. And you know, that that is something for me that um you know is just important that people realize that I mean this. I'm not this isn't a hobby. This is who my parents raised me to be. Right. And my grandparents hoped I would be, they didn't know me. But when the that that's what what the American dream is, and I live that American dream, but I'm also contributing to other people's dream. You absolutely are. But I have to find out what it is, you know, I have to dig in a little bit.
SPEAKER_02:But I think that that's one of the things that's so beautiful and unique about you and your light is that you really do want to get to know every person that you come into contact with, and you want to help bring forth their light. And how can you help them contribute to their own community and what can you do to help them? Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And and I walk away with so much more than I gave, uh, truly. I think it is so joyful to be able to know new people, meet new people that you never knew before, and still keep up with the people you've grown up with. And also to help them have because when you ask them what you know about their life, they th they they don't necessarily think they have a bad life and they don't. But how do you make it better? You know, how do you how do you enhance it? And how do you use your gifts for your children have so much to contribute, so much to contribute, and I have my most fun with you. With young people when they come to the building, I always measure myself against them. You know, like like said when all right, next year when you come back, I'll we'll have to measure again. Because I'm mostly I see eye to eye with these kids and I love that. And I I'll sit down and be at their level because people did that for me and um allowed me to be uh I never thought of myself as small. I my favorite animal is a giraffe. And I have giraffes, little, you know, ceramic giraffes and stuff. And I just think that that there's another kid out there that has the same, wants to be a giraffe too, right, or isn't wants to be something else, a broadcaster or a ballerina. And how do we help them be all those things that that they um wish for themselves and they just don't know how to go about it? And we have we have every one of those resources right here in St. Louis, every single thing that a child could want to be, we could take them to see how how to get there.
SPEAKER_02:It has been such a delight to sit and have this conversation with you. You are truly an inspiration. Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you want to share as we're closing out today?
SPEAKER_01:No, I just would say that um you know I'm pretty accessible uh on LinkedIn and uh, you know, everything about my you and my email addresses and my LinkedIn context because again, most of what people want, they don't want to 100% of your time, they just want to know where to go for this or how to how to do that. And having been an entrepreneur, I've learned a lot. And I'd I like to help as many people be successful in St. Louis. Uh my goal is you know live to 100 and have uh, you know, is make as long a contribution here and see the fruits of our labors that we all are giving into the city to uh make it all that it can be. And so I'm I'm there if people want to contact me, uh a LinkedIn message is is easy, and if I can help, I will. You are if not, I'll find somebody that can.
SPEAKER_02:You are extraordinary. Thank you. You're welcome. For taking time with me and for sharing your wisdom and your heart and your hope and your light. I am incredibly grateful. Wonderful to see you again. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you likewise. Friends, thank you so much for spending time with Maxine and I. And I hope you are as inspired as I am by our conversation. Please take the time to share this podcast with your friends and spread this light around. Between now and the time we spend time together again. Please take good care of you. Thank you for being here. Naturally, it's important to thank the people who support and sponsor the podcast. This episode is supported by Chris Dulley, a trusted criminal defense attorney and friend of mine here in St. Louis, who believes in second chances and solid representation. Whether you're facing a DWI, felony, or traffic issue, Chris handles your case personally with clarity, compassion, and over 15 years of experience. When things feel uncertain, it helps to have someone steady in your corner. Call 314 384 4000 or 314 DUI Help, or you can visit Dulilawfirm.com to schedule your free consultation.