Congratulations to Jessica Payne, Board President at Old North St. Louis Restoration Group and Founder/Owner and Social Justice Communicator of Osiyo Design + Engagement, recipient of our 2020 Award for Transparency & Trust.
The Award for Transparency & Trust recognizes a person, organization, institution, or initiative that:
Works with honesty and openness and isn’t afraid to be vulnerable, especially when things don’t go as planned.
Co-creates work with the people and partners they serve and works to build shared trust so that all at the table feel supported and valued as part of the process.
Embraces mistakes and weaknesses in the open as opportunities to learn and grow.
Humans of St. Louis storytellers Maleeha Samer and Colleen O’Connell Smyth met with Jessica to learn more about her and her work. Here’s some of what she had to say.
Jessica Payne
“I’m originally from Oklahoma, and I had a very idyllic childhood. I lived on a street full of kids. My hometown saw maybe one or two murders a year. I grew up camping, taking ballet lessons, playing the clarinet, taking art classes, and living an average middle-class life. I witnessed my parents always display kindness and generosity. I also witnessed a lot of injustice and struggles, like extended family’s issues with poverty, drugs, and incarceration. So I knew not everybody has ballet class on Tuesdays and art class on Saturdays. I was always aware I was living a privileged existence. I moved to Chicago for about seven years and lived with people from all over the world and different economic backgrounds. I started to experience what was different from my upbringing even more. I started to ask more questions. But at the core, being raised by people who were kind and patient and encouraged me to take chances and do bold things led me to move to a city I didn’t know and get into a field I didn’t know. Hopefully, I did a lot of listening first and not a lot of, ‘Oh, I know what’s right,’ because I didn’t.”
- Jessica Payne, Board President with Old North Saint Louis Restoration Group and Founder/Owner and Social Justice Communicator at Osiyo Design + Engagement
Jessica Payne
“There are many times I can think of when I’ve had to apologize. Once, my neighbor was upset when I made a suggestion about flyering for an activity she was trying to promote. She said I needed to step back and stop telling Black women what to do, and it hit me really hard because that’s not what I was trying to do at all. But, I stopped and listened. We had a conversation offline and have had many since then. Now, we have a great relationship where we can be honest with each other and talk to each other about hard things. I appreciate that we were able to keep building that relationship after a moment in which I was called out for stepping over a line when I shouldn’t have.
Resiliency requires a certain amount of blind faith and hope. I’ve only lived in Old North about six years now, and I read stories from the past and talk to a lot of people who’ve been here decades longer. I look back at the history of this place and all of the terrible policies that led it to be what it is today. There’s really no reason a lot of predominantly Black neighborhoods should even exist anymore, because they were starved for resources for so long. And it’s amazing to see the way Hyde Park is coming back, how Old North has been able to rebuild, and St. Louis Place is still growing their community organization. People here care so much about their own history, their own place, and the people they refuse to give up. Someone might think these neighborhoods are challenged and only see struggles or paint a picture that they’re helpless and need charity and pity. What I see are strong communities that have survived an incredible amount because they believe they deserve better, and they’re willing to do what they can. The community always knows what it needs, and they just need the resources to make it happen.”
- Jessica Payne, Board President with Old North Saint Louis Restoration Group and Founder/Owner and Social Justice Communicator at Osiyo Design + Engagement
Jessica Payne
“I shouldn’t have children telling me about their friends or family members who’ve been shot. We’ve had a lot of tragic incidents in the neighborhood that should never happen to anyone. And there’s a whole lot of trauma that exists in our communities across St. Louis. We have a big National Night Out every year with St. Louis Place, and it’s a time for all of us to just be. I always find it to be a really healing event and our best attended. We also have a community garden that’s full this year where people can grow food and where we host a weekly market to provide fresh produce, which I will add is at the best prices in town. That’s our way of trying to help heal –– by bringing nutritious foods into a community that didn’t have access to them for so long. People here watch out for each other; it’s not everyone out for himself. It’s a misconception that there are a lot of negative things about North City. From my experience, everyone here knows their neighbors because they have to. Part of the way people deal with trauma is finding ways to be connected.
It’s important to listen. That’s something I try to do and, obviously, I’m not perfect and fail constantly. But I try to think back to those reminders of all these superficial processes I’ve witnessed where people think they’re listening, and I don’t actually see that they are. I’ve seen people lead many meetings not listening to anyone who was there. It was a check-the-box type of event, and nobody left happy or feeling like things were going to change. At the first giant National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency meeting at Vashon, they let people come up and talk. The whole time, all of these residents were going up and sharing their concerns and feelings, but not a single person was taking notes or recording it. Nothing. And that doesn’t build any trust with anybody because you’re not even trying to capture what is being said.”
- Jessica Payne, Board President with Old North Saint Louis Restoration Group and Founder/Owner and Social Justice Communicator at Osiyo Design + Engagement
We hope you can join us to celebrate community builders like Jessica at our 8th Annual Community Building Awards on July 29!
Photostory by Humans of St. Louis, Maleeha Samer, and Colleen O’Connell Smyth. Photostory narratives represent the opinions of the speaker(s) featured only and do not necessarily represent the views of the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis.
