ST. LOUIS – The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis is growing inside its headquarters and out on Kingshighway. FOX 2’s Ty Hawkins spoke to the president and CEO, Michael McMillan, about the agency’s vision to continue empowering people in St. Louis.

“We’re proud of the fact that we’re the number one Urban League in America and we work every day to keep that status and to do more and more to evolve, solve more problems and do what is needed of us,” McMillan said.

Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis President and CEO Michael Mcmillan says the goal is to serve as many people as often as they can.

“The work that we do in terms of trying to defeat poverty, to defend democracy, and to create diversity, equity, and inclusion is something that must be supported and emboldened.”

Inside the continuing renovation of the headquarters on Kingshighway, Mcmillan says they’ve been able to address phases of the headquarters and its surroundings as needed.

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“We’re about to begin the plaza behind us. We’re about to open our greenhouse in a couple of months. We just opened recently the Simmons Bank, that’s doing very well. We just opened our AT&T connected learning center, and we have several other ribbon-cutting ceremonies and major announcements we’ll be doing,” McMillan revealed.

There’s work to be done.

McMillan expressed, “We’re very proud that we’ve been able to attract investment partnerships and that people are able to see the success of their investment. We want to build on that success and do some historic things that have never been done in north city.”

Partnerships created over time have helped the urban league serve the community. Their efforts were front and center multiple times during the COVID pandemic at the league headquarters, where thousands of people in cars lined up for food drives after falling on hard times.

“It exposed people to north St. Louis and north county to people that may not otherwise come here. I think it was an education to a lot of business leaders, corporate leaders, and philanthropists that there are some bright spots in north St. Louis.”

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Staying innovative with their goals for under-represented members of the community, the agency and future partnerships are what McMillian says the urban league needs to continue focusing on for the St. . Louis region.

“There is a future in north St. Louis that everything is not bad and negative, that there’s not just crime and vacant and abandoned buildings everywhere you turn. There are millions of dollars being invested in revitalization and rebirth.”

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