Mrs. Julia is a 70-year-old resident of The Ville. The Ville was the cornerstone of the Black community and boasts an assortment of historical buildings and who’s who in the Black community. Growing up, Mrs. Julia attended Marshall Elementary, Turner Middle, and Sumner High School, respectively. She was raised with 4 siblings, a brother and sister, and she herself was a twin.  Ms. Julia gave birth to two children, a son and a daughter who passed on. 

Growing up in The Ville, the older residents pushed the youth to strive for excellence. Ms. Julia remembers one of her first jobs was working downtown for a company called Graymont selling dry goods. She also worked at Homer G. Phillips as a mail clerk and as a clerk in the radiology dept as a film librarian before they closed. She shared a story about the closing of Homer G. Phillips and how the community was outraged over the decision. 

Eltoreon Hawkins is 26 years old and was born and raised in the small community of Walnut Park, located on the Northside of Saint Louis. In the early ‘90’s, Eltoreon and his three siblings, two sisters and one brother, were raised by a very overprotective mother, Mrs. Tryanna Pippen’s, who didn’t allow them to go outside and play in the community, so they spent a lot of time in the house being creative and entertaining themselves. Many times, Eltoreon found himself looking outside his window and seeing kids riding their bikes up and down the street and wondered what that would be like.

Pamela McLucas returned to her family home by heirship expanded by her perception of how the community is built. In 1986, her parents purchased a home with the expectation of gaining property equity and passing the investment along. In 1998 she was married, and Pamela and her husband purchased their own home in the Lewis Place Neighborhood.