The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis plays an important role in empowering African-Americans within St. Louis. Accordingly, in a review of the mission statement, “The mission of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, Inc. is to empower African Americans and others throughout the region in securing economic self-reliance, social equality, and civil rights” (The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, 2022). One of the strategies used by the organization is the provision of economic opportunities. Through prospects such as entrepreneurship and the creation of jobs, the organization focuses on elevating African-Americans from poverty.
The organization’s second strategy is to ensure educational excellence among African-Americans. It provides a means through which the community can attend quality educational institutions. Additionally, through the organization’s Urban League Academy, students can access internship and scholarship opportunities. Thirdly, there are community empowerment programs that attend to the needs of the most vulnerable in St. Louis. Finally, the organization has been at the center in terms of fighting unfair treatment across the social, cultural and educational dimensions through its civil rights strategy.
An important aspect of the organization is its ability to meet the clothing and nutritional needs of the community. The clothing assistance program provides a means through which families that are unable to meet their clothing needs can access free clothing. Through donations from different parties that include the organization’s staff, board committees, young professionals, and corporations, the organization can attend to the different clothing needs of the St. Louis community.
When it comes to nutritional needs, the organization has food pantries distributed all over St. Louis. The food pantries can be found in the organization’s offices located in St. Louis County, St., Clair county, and St. Louis city. This strategy is facilitated by the fact that the organization is under the St. Louis Area Food Bank and Operation Food Bank membership structure, ensuring that there are minimal or no costs when it comes to food distribution. Based on its civil rights advocacy strategy and bound to the United States Department of Agriculture’s civil rights law, the organization does not discriminate against the food recipient baasebased on their demographic, racial or physical characteristics such as race and religion.
Moreover, the organization has been an important part of the St. Louis community during the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time when most communities were vulnerable to the economic and social effects of the pandemic, the Urban league utilized different strategies to cushion the St. Louis African-American community. To begin with, the organization initiated a city-wide drive-through strategy that ensured adequacy in the supply of food and personal protective equipment to the community. Although this was the responsibility of the division of public safety and community response, the organization was also able to leverage its influence to ensure that it could raise enough cash for the program.
In line with this, the organization received cash donations totaling $4.5 million, engaged with over 1000 volunteers, and received the support of 100 corporations. In essence, across the 26-week program, The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis assisted over 90,000 households. For those who could not receive assistance from the drive-through program, the organization initiated the public safety Serving our needs program. It is a strategy that ensured the organization would deliver assistance to homebound families that include the disabled and seniors.
Reference
The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis. (2022). Mission & Vision. ULSTL. Web.