The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis held its 92nd Annual Dinner on March 8th, 2010. The National Urban League is currently the nation’s largest organization for civil rights and is celebrating 100 years of empowering African Americans.
When the city founded its own organization in 1918, its original goal was to defuse racial tensions as well as helping to improve living conditions in order to build stable communities. Since this time the Urban League has become a powerful force of improvement for St. Louis. The organization helps by working to meet the basic needs of disadvantaged households, and finding job placement for individuals by offering training experience for those jobs.
A large part of this organization is dedicated to children and to the future education of those children. The Urban League Head Start Program currently has over 700 children participating in the program. This organization developed the Head Start program to prepare children from low-income families to be successful in elementary school. The Urban League believes that children are the leaders of tomorrow therefore they also provide scholarships to students attending college.
Awards of Merit were issued at this year’s dinner to individuals Rev. Michael T. Jones, Cheryl Heard, Faye Robinson and the corporations of Citi and non-profit Habitat for Humanity for their work with the community. Marc H. Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League served as guest speaker. Also present were the leaders of Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, President and CEO James H. Buford and Chairman Stephen C. Jones.
The work of organizations such as The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis is truly one of the things that make this city so strong and help to insure a better future for everyone.
