Build-A-Bear, Build-A-City: Maxine Clark on Curiosity, Business & Belonging

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What happens when you treat curiosity like a business plan and community like your bottom line? Maxine Clark—founder of Build-A-Bear and the force behind St. Louis’s Delmar Divine—talks about creating brands that hold people, not just products. We explore the question that keeps opening doors for her: “How can I help?” and the multiplier that guides her work—1+1=100.

We don’t run the play-by-play; we sit with the pivots: listening to children, translating insight into action, and building places where families can access programs, housing, and services. The Build-A-Bear founder followed her curiosity into community transformation—asking better questions, listening to kids, and building spaces where opportunity lives. She also teases a new project, Trick or Tree STL—a Halloween donation-box drive inviting kids to help replant tornado-lost trees. If you care about entrepreneurship with a human heartbeat, this one’s for you.

Learn more about the work Maxine is doing, her projects and connect with her here:

Maxine Clark on LinkedIn

Trick or Tree STL - This Halloween, kids across St. Louis will collect cash donations to help replant thousands of trees lost in the May 16, 2025
tornado. Trick or Tree teaches kids ecology, philanthropy, and community
pride while restoring our region’s green canopy. As they grow, so will the trees,creating a legacy in their own hometown. 

BluePrint4 - Our vision is to ensure St. Louis families have easy access to information about high-quality learning opportunities and the support necessary for their children to attend.

Delmar Divine - Delmar DivINe maximizes the efficiency, effectiveness, and impact of the nonprofit sector in the St. Louis region, especially among health, education and human service organizations, while simultaneously being a catalyst for the transformation of neighborhoods in North St. Louis City.

Clark Fox Family Foundation - Founded in 2004, the Clark-Fox Family Foundation supports the growth and prosperity of the St. Louis metropolitan region through research, program development and investments in PK-12, higher education, public health, immigration, social justice and racial equity, community leadership, and entrepreneurship. The Foundation prioritizes programs and investments that empower the end user and leverage each other for broader access and greater impact for our children and community.

Thank you for listening to Hope Comes to Visit. If this conversation helps, follow the show, share it with someone who needs hope today, and leave a review - it helps others find their way to these conversations.

New episodes drop every Monday, so you can begin your week with a little light and a lot of hope.

For more stories, reflections, and ways to connect, visit www.DanielleElliottSmith.com or follow along on Instagram @daniellesmithtv and @HopeComestoVisit

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
She said, these are easy.

(00:01):
We could make these.
And the light bulb went on uh onin my head and I could see the
store, I could see everythingbecause I'd been to factories
that made stuffed animals.

SPEAKER_02 (00:18):
I'm Danielle Elliott Smith, and this is Hope Comes to
Visit, a podcast that celebratesthe light we find in each
other's stories.
I am really excited to introduceyou to my guest today, my guest,
Maxine Clark.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
You are the founder and formerCEO, so chief executive mayor of
Bill DeBayr, and you have somany other titles.

(00:40):
So the CEO of the Clark FoxFamily Foundation and the chief
inspirator of the Delmar Divine.
You are obviously well knownhere in the St.
Louis area, and there isn'tanyone in the world who hasn't
heard about Bill DeBayr.
I was in Copenhagen just acouple of like a month ago, and
I'm walking through the airportand I look and I see Bill

(01:01):
DeBayer and I think, Bill DeBairis worldwide.
And I knew that I was going tobe sitting down with you in a
couple of weeks.
So let's take a quick moment tothank the people that support
and sponsor the podcast.
When life takes an unexpectedturn, you deserve someone who
will stand beside you.
St.
Louis attorney Chris Duly offersexperienced one-on-one legal
defense.

(01:21):
Call 314-384-4000 or 314-DUIhelp.
Or you can visitDullylawfirm.com.
That's D-U-L-L-E lawfirm.com fora free consultation.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
You're welcome.
Your your story, your light, issuch an inspiration to so many.

(01:42):
And knowing that I was going tobe sitting down with you, I you
and I go go back quite a bit.
Um, but what I love about yourstory is your heart and your
inspiration.
Will you tell our viewers andour listeners a little bit about

(02:02):
your inspiration behind Build DeBeer first?
And then we're gonna dive intoyour philanthropy and and your
heart for kids and all the workyou do here in St.
Louis.

SPEAKER_01 (02:11):
Yeah, thank you for asking.
Well, Bill Dear uh wasn't Ididn't dream of going into my
own business because I workedfor the May department stores um
for 20-something years, and Ialways ran my own business, but
on somebody else's nickel.
Right.
And uh lots was happening in theregion.
I loved working for the MayCapitoly.
I had so many opportunities.
It's how I came to St.
Louis, it's how I met myhusband.

(02:32):
Uh how I have so many friendsand roots here uh now.
Um so it was a wonderful career.
But just one day, you know, inthe in the tech revolution of
the of our country and startingto use technology in business, I
realized that that they weren'tgoing where they needed to go.
And while I was running a agigantic company, Pay Less Use
Source, with 4,500 stores anddoing two and a half billion, it

(02:54):
wasn't what it was cracked up tobe.
Like you, the further up theladder you go, the farther away
from the customer you go.
And I think my strength hasalways been um understanding who
I'm talking to, who I'm workingwith.
And that was my journalism.
I loved journalism.
I was a high school editor of mynewspaper, I took journalism in
college, and it you know madeyou go out and ask questions and

(03:15):
and write stories and work onprojects that would elevate
somebody else's brand.
And um that to me was reallyfun, understanding the customer.
And so um I decided to leavethat job.
Uh payless was uh going publicas a separate company.
I didn't want to do that, and itwas in Topeka, Kansas.
I wanted to come back to St.
Louis.

(03:35):
I had never really left, it wasjust commuting, but the um and I
got wanted to get my kid thinkback.
That was really it.
So my next door neighbor kids,um, I grew up in a neighborhood
where I I was really goodfriends with other adults and my
the two kids that live next doorto me, we were really close
friends.
So I would pick them up in themorning and take them to school
and pick them up in theafternoon and um bring them back

(03:57):
home.
And on our way home that day,uh, we decided to stop at a toy
store near our neighborhood andlook for beanie babies.
They were really popular.
I remember the beanie babies.
And uh they had a sign in thewindow that said we have beanie
babies, so we stopped and wentin, but they didn't really have
any because during the day theparents trolled the stores to
buy them for for their kids andthey took this the discovery

(04:18):
away.
They took the the fun of thecollecting and cataloging it and
putting it you know together andseeing how many you could get uh
away.
And when Katie saw they didn'treally have them and she was
disappointed that they had asign in the window that said we
have dishonest, but yeah, shesaid, These are easy, we could
make these.
And the light bulb went on uh onin my head and I could see the

(04:39):
store, I could see everythingbecause I'd been to factories
that made stuffed animals, and Iknew that we could, you know,
re- uh uh re-jig it to get it tobe facing the customer instead
of in a factory.

SPEAKER_00 (04:49):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (04:49):
And I looked around for businesses in America that
could um find it.
But we went home to my house,the kids went downstairs in my
craft room and got out all thestuff to make you know, the
stuffed animals.
And Katie had already drawn theone that she wanted, and the um
she came up and said, What areyou doing?
And I said, Well, I'm lookingfor a company to see.
I was netscaping because that'swhere we were in 1997.

(05:09):
Um or nine early, lateninety-six, I think we were.
And I said, I'm looking to seeif there's a company I could buy
and turn it into a place whereyou can make your own stuffed
animals.
Didn't have the name yet.
And she said, Well, I didn'tmean that.
I said, Well, I know you didn't,but it's I think it's a really
good idea.
And again, it's a hands-onexperience.
Kids are getting in front ofscreens now, and it was very
hard, you know, hard.

(05:29):
And a stuffed animal is verysoft.
But I knew about my relationshipwith my stuffed animal, my teddy
bear teddy, very creative name.
And Katie and George, herstuffed animal, and her brother
Jack had Teddy, his was Teddy,and they didn't go anywhere
without him.
If they came to spend the nightat my house, those bears were
with him, and I loved them asmuch as they did because I could
remember my relationship with mystuffed animal.

(05:51):
And when I lost him, I was I wasbeside myself.
So all of those experiences, myown childhood, their childhood,
the childhood of their friendsand my other friends' kids, you
know, came to play in what webuilt as Build-A-Bear workshop.

SPEAKER_02 (06:04):
See, that's extraordinary, and it's just
these little pieces of lightbulb moments go off.
And you think, wait, I can dothis and I can create this
extraordinary experience forchildren.
How hard was it to get itstarted?
Right.
I mean, you're talking aboutlate 90s, early 2000s.
Um in the mid-2000s, I wrote abook about women starting

(06:26):
businesses, right?
And so I know that whengenerally speaking, when women
start businesses, we especiallyfrom home, we start small and
grow.
The smallest percentage of womengo after venture capital, go
after funding, and say, I've gotsomething big that's going to
grow.
And they ask for investors.

(06:46):
So what route did you take?
And and how did you did you everdream that this would be as big
as it is?

SPEAKER_01 (06:53):
I did dream it.
It's I wrote a 10-year businessplan.
Good for that.
And um, I wasn't gonna doanything small.
I mean, I ran a 2,500 storecompany.
You know, you can't go to smallin a nothing, what other people
seem as small is not small.
Build a bear has like 600 storesaround the world.
That's small in comparison tomany retail chains.
So um, but it's big in in whatit produces and not not so much

(07:15):
just the money, the the memoriesand the heart and the soul of of
relating to your customer in adifferent way.
So um I did have that plan.
I knew it could be successfulbecause kids told me it would be
successful.
Right.
I went straight to the kids.
My first board of directors waschildren.
And they really yeah, they uh myfriends' kids, kids I met in the
mall.
I said, Would you like to be ona board of directors?
And they looked at me like I wascrazy.

(07:36):
But we did.
We met on Saturday mornings inthe store before it was built,
and then after it was built, wethey helped me decide what was
good were good animals for thebeginning.
And um they're all grown up nowand they have their own
children, and they bring theirown children to build a bear.
But that was very helpful to me.
Not that I didn't know what Iwanted, but I always have known
the customer was um the key tosuccess.

(07:56):
And I can go all the way backbecause I went to work at the
Bay Company in um say in inWashington, D.C.
I was going I moved toWashington, D.C.
My intention was go to go to lawschool.
I had to go to work to pay forit.
And um I got a job in theexecutive training program at
the company in Washington, DC.
And I loved it from thebeginning.

(08:17):
I had no idea that's what peopledo, that it how where
merchandise comes from one placeto another.
Um because my mother, you wewere my sister and I were both
small, and my mother made ourclothes, partially because we
were small, partially because wecould sh she loved it, she was
creative, but we couldn't affordto buy go buy those clothes that
were now they don't seem soexpensive, but in those days it
seemed expensive to us.
And I remember when I got to bebest dressed in my class, that

(08:39):
was like a really big deal whenyou know your mother I didn't
tell people my mother made myclothes.
Right.
But um, but anyway, the um I wasreally meant for the business.
And my college marketingprofessor, Dr.
Carter, he encouraged me.
He said, you know, you gotta goearn some money to go to school,
you might as well go intoretail, you're really good at
it.
And I thought, like, how does heknow I'm good at retail?
I never worked at a retailstore.

(09:00):
Um I like clothes and I likethings like that.
But he had a from from thequestions and what he was
teaching us in marketing,branding, and things like that,
he could see my hand going upthere all the time, and he knew
that I really um had a passionfor it.
And I did.
And um one day, many yearslater, I went he invited me back
to teach his class and uh withmy book and give everybody in
the class a book.

(09:21):
And um I was really proudbecause he had a lot of of a say
in that book.
Not from did I consult with him,but he taught me a lot of things
that are in that book.
And also I'm a you know, I wenta lot of places that I couldn't
afford to go in the door, but Iwould observe.
Um, with my mother on Saturdays,we would go downtown in Miami
and just look in the windowsbecause we really couldn't
afford what they were selling,but we could dream about it.

(09:44):
And I always wondered where arethey wearing all those clothes?
Because I, you know, and even inFlorida, with it's hot, they
would show women in mink coatsand windows.
And uh yes, when they got to theholiday season of uh uh cruise
wear, then we it was obviouswhat you could wear that
anywhere.
But and it so so for me it wasalways interesting more than I
knew.
You know, I just liked it, andmy mother made me beautiful

(10:05):
things, and people alwaysadmired me.
But it wasn't like um I thoughtthat was gonna be my destiny.
In fact, I wanted to do anythinga woman didn't do when I
graduated from college in 1971.
Yeah, I wouldn't be they want tobe a teacher, nurse, social
worker, or secretary.
I wanted to do somethingdifferent and and law, I wanted
to be a civil rights attorney.
I grew up in the civil rightsmovement, and my mother was a
civil rights person for childrenwith um dis differently able

(10:28):
children.
Um and I I thought that theyneeded a lot of help, you know,
and so there was a realopportunity for me to um make a
difference in that world.
And I intended to do that, but Igot a job, and um my boss got
sick and he had to take offabout nine months because he had
a heart attack, and in thosedays you took a long time off.

SPEAKER_00 (10:47):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (10:47):
And by the time he came back, we had changed the
whole department and turned itaround.
He he was doing well because itwas a women's sportswear, but we
made it for the 21st century, orthe well, we were still in the
20th then, but we made it forworking women, and um we just
did a huge amount of businessand he got his biggest bonus
ever, and he shared it with me,and I wasn't bonus eligible.
So that was a that was animportant lesson, you know, that

(11:10):
if you do what you're supposedto do, number one, go with your
heart, but also realizing thatyou're doing it for someone else
also, you know, his success wasimportant to me.
And I didn't know him very longbecause he'd I just worked for
him for maybe six weeks.
And um, it was such a talk ofthe company because who's who is
she?
Who does she think she is, youknow?
And one of the great thingsabout retail is that it's

(11:30):
results oriented.
So it doesn't matter if you'retall or short or male or female,
you get the results.
Um that's all they care about.
That's what they notice.
And I was good at that.
I was really good at theconsumer.
I would be on the floor all thetime talking to the customers,
and um, my curiosity is mysuperpower, and it really paid
off in almost every single thingI've done in my life.
Sometimes somebody might getirritated that I'd ask one of my

(11:52):
deep dive questions.
But um, you know, for the mostpart, it's just been my my um
real ability that that abilityto ask a question and not be
worried about they didn't thinkit's a dumb question.
Just ask it and get it outthere.
And and and it's usually aquestion that other people are
thinking, but they don't havethe guts to ask, so it helps a
lot more people than just youget the answer.

SPEAKER_02 (12:13):
I feel as though you have many superpowers.
And curiosity is one of them,but I feel as though your heart
for people and your recognitionof who you're talking to and and
your ability to listen to theiranswer also fall into your
superpowers because you'vementioned the customer, the
consumer a number of times,right?
So your recognition of whoyou're talking to and who

(12:37):
matters.
It isn't you're not moneymotivated, you're heart
motivated for the person you'reyou're listening to.
Right.
And I think that is rare, but Ithink that's probably the the
beating heart behind so much ofwhat you do and the success of
what you do.
I think about how with build-abear, you know, we get to put

(13:00):
the heart in in the bear, right?
Or or in whatever animal we'rechoosing, right?
Um, I gave build-a-bears to whenI got married in in 2002, I put,
I did the build-a-bears for bothour flower girl and our ring
bearer.
And it was so sweet to give thatto them.
And then my daughter was aflower girl, and she was given

(13:23):
the very same.
And it was just such a neat fullcircle moment.
But actually, it's interesting.
You mentioned that one of thefirst things you wanted to be
was a civil rights attorney.
That was one of the first thingsI wanted to be too.
I wanted to go work for MorrisD's at the civil uh civil
southern poverty law firmbecause I grew up in Los
Angeles, and there were so manycivil rights issues at the time

(13:45):
when I was recognizing howunfair the world seemed to be,
and I didn't like it at all, andI ended up going a journalism
path.
But um we have a lot in common.
Yes, we we definitely do.
But you know, I mean, we'refriends on Facebook too, so I I
recognize that we have a lot incommon in many areas.
But let's talk about the Del MarDivine.

(14:06):
So tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01 (14:07):
Delmar Divine uh is uh I'm not saying I ever dreamt
that either, but um MichaelBrown died in August of 2014,
and um the next day I went overto uh Ferguson or Gent, wherever
it was such a crossroads wherehe was.
And I sat on a hill with a bunchof young black uh children.

(14:28):
And I was just sitting there.
I needed the peace.
I needed to know, you know, whydid this happen to a young
teenage boy with so much future?
And, you know, now 11 yearslater, he probably he could have
owned his own HVAC company.
That's why he was going toschool.
He was got had gotten into theHVAC program, and he that that
was what he wanted to be.
And he was just a kid, you know,walking across the street.
Yeah, maybe he stole a pack ofcigarettes or something, I'm not

(14:50):
sure.
But like all most of us know thethe experience of that, and our
parents see us, what's youngenough when you do it, your
parents see it and say, We'regoing back there, and you're
gonna say you're sorry, andyou're gonna give that back to
the um it's sort of part of alife lesson that you have to
have.
And um, I was sitting theretalking to the kids, and I
realized that these kids they'remumbling a lot to each other.
They didn't, they weren't rudeto me.
I was saying, you know, I'm surethey wondered who the hell is

(15:12):
that?
What's she doing there?
But they were very nice, and Ilistened to their conversation
for a long time.
And um, this one of the youngmen um I said, Look, is there
anything I can do to help?
And he said, Well, you see thatcar over there, and he pointed
to a car that had was sitting onon um cinder blocks.
He said, That's my mama's car.
And her tires were stolen, andthat was three weeks ago, and a

(15:33):
policeman has never come towrite the police report so she
can get the insurance.
And he said, But they walkfollow a teenage boy, you know,
out of a quick shop, and youknow, here we are.
Here we are.
And I thought it was a reallyastute statement, by the way.
And I said, Well, I think I canhelp with that.
There's tons of police aroundhere.
Maybe we can find one of them towrite the report.
And um I never heard, you know,we know we didn't exchange cards

(15:57):
or anything like that.
Um uh, but you realize thatthere's little just little
simple things get in the way ofof people, average people doing
the big things.
I don't know, he might havewanted to be a doctor, a
dentist, a lawyer, who knows.
But um then we were talking tosome of the other kids I was
talking to, they said, I said,What did you do this summer?

(16:18):
And they looked at me like,well, hung out.
What are we supposed to do?
And they and I realized that myfriends' kids of the same age
were going to summerprogramming, they might be at,
you know, and picked out theuniversity they want to go to
and they go to a summer programthere.
They have access to so muchinformation.
The same information exists andis available to these other
children, but if you don't knowit exists, you don't know where

(16:39):
to go to look for it.
Right.
I went back to our office and ummy my assistant and I said,
Ollie, like, you know, what doyou do for, you know, what did
you do when you were a kid forsummer school?
And she grew up in KirkKirkwood, she said, Oh, you
know, there were the why, wherethere were tons of programs.
And we're gonna go, we're gonnafind out what the summer camps
are.
We're gonna build a platform forall kids to have access to the
information, all parents.

(17:00):
Got it.
And uh that was blueprint4.com.
And the first summer, which was2015, we had 3,000 or so camps.
Now we have well over 10,000,and we um always marketed it in
North in the city in NorthCounty.
Uh we it's for anybody, but wemade it so that that the people
who didn't have the informationwould have access to that
information.

(17:20):
And then we have a camp submit,which are invited to, you can
come to um in a um, it's inSeptember coming up in a couple
weeks, and we bring all the campproviders together and we talk
about what went on in thesummer, finding common you know,
issues and opportunities, andwhat can we do to solve that
problem together?
And they never did that, theydidn't have like a consortium of

(17:40):
summer camps.
Um, and we have, I mean, that'sa lot of camps.
And the average summer camp isabout$250.
So you know, you have two kidsthat if you were putting them in
camp all summer long, that wouldhave cost you a lot of money.
So people pick and choosesomething that's gonna have, you
know, really um there if it'ssports or if it's science, and
we have all those things.
And prior to Blueprint, wedidn't necessarily have as many

(18:01):
in North City and County as weshould have, based on the aging,
the population.
But now we do people, you know,when we have the data from the
the app, we can we give them alluh all this information and they
can we say, you know, here's howmany people were looking for an
art camp in 63136, but there wasonly two.
You missed an opportunity, youknow, and then the next year
they'll adjust accordingly.

(18:21):
Okay, and we'll help them withthe marketing, you know, because
we'll push it so that everybodyknows that.
Um, but we have enormousresources in St.
Louis.
Enormous.
And we've talked to other citiesabout it.
People have called us and said,um, you know, could we let
license that for our city?
But they don't really even knowwhat they they aren't willing to
go out and we went and to allthese camps.
We made a list of all thesecamps.

(18:41):
Okay.
And thankfully, um, MichaelBrown did not die in vain.
He opened my eyes up to um, youknow, a missing link in our
community, and it's helpedeveryone.
It's not just help kids in cityand north county because parents
use it from all over St.
Louis, and we do we help themmarket their businesses, we help
them um the mostly it's forparents and and children, but

(19:03):
the uh we go to school fairs,they now have camp fairs in
North County that we co-sponsor.
They used to be out in WestCounty, but nobody set up tables
for the parents in North Countyas if they didn't have any money
and they didn't have any kids,and they had both.
So how can we um those arethat's just a symbol of other
issues that people have and theyhave the same desires, but they

(19:24):
just don't have they don't knowit exists.
They don't know it exists.

SPEAKER_02 (19:27):
And and I think that you're you're because there are
if you don't know what you don'tknow, then it's those kids are
left to just fend forthemselves, but they'd love to
be involved in in the programs.
Yeah, is there is this somethingthat if someone was listening
right now and they wanted to getinvolved or they wanted to help

(19:49):
or assist with the work thatyou're doing, is it something
that you people could getinvolved in helping?
Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_01 (19:55):
I'm gonna give you one a brand new one that we're
working on right now.
Okay.
We're really um moving quicklybecause it's um associated with
Halloween.
But when I was a little kid, andmaybe when you were two, uh
there was a program calledTrigger Treat for UNICEF.

SPEAKER_02 (20:08):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (20:08):
And it put UNICEF on the map.
The first one was in 1950 inPhiladelphia, and they raised
17.3 million.
I remember and then it spreadaround the country and now it's
sort of I think not so popular.
But we're gonna do trick-or-treehere in St.
Louis, okay, across St.
Louis, so that kids cantrick-or-treat and get candy,
but they also can get coins andand we're we've designed a box

(20:28):
and we're gonna do all thisdistribution through the school
districts, the libraries, theboys and girls clubs.
Because I want children torealize they can make a
difference.
And these trees are not free.
Uh, the trees that we're gonnaneed to plant in North St.
Louis are not free, but they'renot hugely expensive.
So actually, a box of pennieswould be enough to buy a
seedling tree somewhere and getit plant, a good tree, the tree

(20:49):
we want to have, and uh replacethat tree.
And when these children grow up,that tree will be tall again
like it was a few months agobefore the tornado.
And they can say to theirchildren, I did that.
And I I did that.
I felt like that.
I felt like when I finally I itput UNICEF on the map, but also
I planted trees in Israel.
And when I went to Israel forthe first time, I many years ago

(21:09):
in the 70s, I saw my trees.
Uh and it made me feel, youknow, like I I had done
something for the world.
Because you you're a child, andmost of the time they just treat
you like a child and they letyou have fun.
And but it is fun to do goodthings.
I love selling Girl Scoutcookies.
Yes.
So there are many things, but ifyou're not in that in that
program, because it doesn'texist in your neighborhood, then
you might not get a chance.
But this is something every kidcan do.

(21:31):
And I've talked to severalsuperintendents of schools the
last few weeks.
I came up with the idea.
I I talked to Forest Park and Italked to Relief Missouri, which
is um where all most of thetrees come from that are on the
cities and streets, andeverybody was like for it.
Let's do it.
Okay.
So we're um so you're the firstone.
I haven't this, I haven't hadany public announcement about
it.
Yeah, but we are gonna put itout there, and and obviously we

(21:51):
have a short window of time toget all the information out
there.
So we've been feverishly workingon the marketing and working on
um the how we're gonnadistribute the products and
collect the money.
That's the hardest part of all.
Okay.
Isn't isn't is getting the boxesout to the kids and the teachers
and using it as a learningmoment.
Okay.
Because I remember my grandpatook a quarter at one time for
me and he made it into fivenickels, and he kept four of the

(22:13):
nickels, he gave me one.
So we're gonna put this in yourbank so that you can go to
college, you can go to um, andhe hardly spoke English, you
know, to to give it away tocharity to do uh something else.
This one you can, this five, youcan go buy a piece of candy.
Oh, this nickel that I'm givingyou.
So, you know, like there werethings, lessons that you learn
in your life, if you just stopto take a breath, that you would
realize were preparing you forthe life that you live today.

(22:35):
And um a lot of times we justthink, oh, that's mom's stuff or
that's dad's stuff or grandpa'sstuff.
What do I need to know that for?
But it does seep into you, thankheavens, and it does turn out to
make you um a part of you of theperson that you are and gives
you a structure that you may notneed at 10, but you might need
it 20, and you might need at 30,and you certainly need it 70 or

(22:56):
80 or 90, um, living your life,because that that's the hardest
part of life, isn't the isn'tthe youthful part.
It's really when you might beolder and not healthy and really
need to, you know, deal with asystem that isn't necessarily in
your favor.
Um so you better better betough.
And um, so I think that for meit's always been about kids.
I mean, I was a kid, and uh myparents were my mother would say

(23:18):
to me, I'd say, Havert, mom,what what is this?
She's look it up in the worldbook.
And that was like the Google ofour time.
Right.
And I'd go and get the worldbook, and oh mom, of course,
thanks.
And I'd go get the world bookand I'd get lost in it because
every page had a it had a smell,it had a certain feel.
There were shiny pages.
Yeah.
And when you opened it, it waslike this, and I just keep
going.
And exploring.
And and on most of the projectsshe told me to look up in the

(23:39):
world book, I got an A onbecause I've I really dug in.
It was like being, you know, a sa story for journalism.
You're you're really getting,you're looking, doing research.
I loved research.
I love knowing how things work,even though that wouldn't be
necessarily my career.
I want I I still am wonderingabout how do they build
underwater tunnels and how dothe airplanes fly, and you know,
I am insatiably curious aboutthings all the time.

(24:02):
So it's the fun of it, you know,when I meet a young person who's
that's what they're doing.
I said, How did you decide to dothat?
And we get in this longconversation, and then we have a
relationship because they toldme something I had no idea
about, and I've always wondered.
And um, so it's it's also whenyou're curious, there's a
million things you can talkabout with people.
Um, and honestly, it you canrelate to people that may not

(24:23):
think you can relate to you, orthey don't think that they could
be a friend with you.
And I have so many friends thatI've made in the last um since
starting Build-A-Bear, ofcourse, but even since then with
the project on Blueprint andliving more times in the city of
St.
Louis and North County with newfriends and solving, trying to
solve problems together becausethe inequities are there, and we

(24:44):
can pretend they're not, butmore women die of breast cancer
in in the black community thandie in the white community
because of just because theydidn't get early detection.
And yet we look where we live.
We live with the best hospitals,three systems of hospitals that
are really high quality, butthey didn't necessarily, there
were all the reasons that arehistoric, didn't realize it.
And now we're working as a teamof women.

(25:05):
Um for this will be our secondfull year of bringing all those
agencies together so that we canfill the gaps if there's a gap.
We can work with the doctors andthe uh, and we're working with
uh uh Gateway to Hope, which isa really wonderful nonprofit
that supports women who may nothave the money or the insurance
to f to go the whole route on itif they find out they have

(25:25):
breast cancer.
How do they get to the um to allthe things that they're going to
need?
And that is an amazingorganization led by a young
woman who is a friend of mine,but we met through doing work in
community work.
She was working at Boeing, shewas the chief of staff to the
president of Boeing at the time,and we met, we had lunch a
couple times, and I knew thatshe was a mover and a shaker.

SPEAKER_02 (25:45):
Look at your beautiful heart.
I mean, it's it's everywhere.
You like I feel as though when Iwas working in the recovery
space, I would answer the phone,how can I help?
Right?
Like this is Danielle, how can Ihelp?
And I feel as though that howcan I help drives you as well.
Yeah.
Like you see you instantlycaught into inequities and

(26:06):
think, how can I fix this?
How can I, how can I make thisbetter?
How can I use whateverconnections I have?
And this goes a little bit tothe conversation we were having
before.
You said, like, how can I takeone in one and not make it two,
but make it 100?

SPEAKER_01 (26:20):
And Del Barnavine, um, the next year, actually,
that that fall, I was the boardchair of KIP St.
Louis, and we're opening aschool in um the west end of St.
Louis.
And I had never really walkedaround that neighborhood, and I
found all these beautiful homesthat met the neighbors, and the
neighbors were really helpingus, like being like grandparents
on demand, and they were great.
And one of them said to me, Whydon't you look around the

(26:41):
neighborhood?
I see that you always go rightbecause I live, you know, in the
Clayton, U City area.
And why don't you take adifferent turn and go see if
there's a house you see that youmight want to buy and we'll help
you remodel it.
I turned around, I turnedanother corner, and there was
this hospital building.
They were just nailing the forsale sign in.
And I was, I knew instantly whatit could be.
It was another light bulbmoment.
And I called Dennis Lauer atCortex and I said, Dennis, why

(27:04):
don't you buy this building andturn it into a Cortex West for
nonprofits?
Because during this process ofafter Michael Brown, I met so
many people that I didn't knowin so many different nonprofits,
and I realized that everybodywas starting a nonprofit to
solve a problem, and maybe therewas another one that already
existed, and we could worktogether for the one plus one
could equal a hundred.
And um, but people didn't reallywork that way.

(27:25):
They didn't uh they didn't knowthey didn't do the research on
competitor, and in the in thereal business world, you look at
your competitors, but theydidn't necessarily do that.
So I thought we could build abuilding where we could bring as
many together as possible.
And this building was quite big,it was about 500,000 square
feet.
So I knew that that teachers,nurses, social workers don't
make all that much money.
We could build really greatapartments with all the

(27:47):
amenities that that moreexpensive apartments would have
because the property was cheaperfor us where we bought it, and
uh we could have a mixed livingand working environment.
So it has a hundred and fiftyright now, phase one had 150
apartments.
We have about 40 nonprofits thatwork in the building in health,
uh, education, and communitydevelopment.
And then we have uh conferencespaces that we share.

(28:08):
Uh I told you we have a podcastroom, so they a lot of them use
our podcast room, and then uh umwe have some retail.
Well we brought we we spent alot of time with the neighbors
because Builder Bear took ninemonths from idea to reality.
This took nine years, uh verycomplicated uh financial
structure.
But um with what the neighborstold us is we need a bank, we

(28:29):
need a pharmacy, we need anurgent care.
And I l I lived just three milesdown Del Mar.
Wow, and there were four that Icould walk to, you know, but in
their neighborhood they didn'thave that.
So we went out looking forthose, and I know how to do that
too from retail, and we foundsome great partners to come in.
St.
Louis Community Credit Union wasour first tenant.
They signed the lease beforeanybody else.
They said, we want to be thereas soon as you open.

(28:49):
Right.
We'll we'll open up right after.
And they've been amazingpartners.
Uh young man, I read about himin in I think St.
Louis magazine, that had comeback to St.
Louis to open up this pharmacyfor the minority communities,
all minority communities, peoplewith certain health care uh
needs that can't just walk intoa pharmacy and get what they
need.
Um, personal that he had seenwhen he was in college at the

(29:10):
University of North Carolina,and it just had stayed with him.
He went on to be a teacher, um,teach for America, and then he
went to graduate school and gothis PhD.
And um I said, Well, we have aplace for you.
And that sort of turned thecorner for him because now he
had a place.
So now he had to take the ideafrom idea on paper in a story
that he told a reporter toreality.
And we're great partners.

(29:31):
I mean, we're not, I'm not anowner of his business, but we
are partners.
He's an important part of ourbuilding.
And um, he went and worked withall the different uh urgent
cares and he brought in urgentcare there from SSM.
So the neighborhood loved that.
And then we have a deli.
The neighborhood used to havelike 45 delis food markets uh
when the turn of the 19th to the20th century when the building
was first built, it was animmigrant Jewish neighborhood,

(29:52):
but an immigrant broadly moreimmigrant, so lots of immigrants
coming from lots of differentcountries.
So they had all kinds ofdifferent food on Del Mar.
Um nothing now in thisparticular area or wasn't, but
but we worked really hard andwe've attracted a lot of
restaurants back to Del Mar.
And um they're on the in themaker district or in uh where we
are.
Okay.
Uh and then we also have um uhto the Delhi Divine is there,

(30:15):
Ben Paramba.
He was excited, he wanted toopen a deli.
He said, I heard you want adeli, let me do it.
And uh we partnered with himtoo.
I mean, literally, you know, youjust they don't just walk in,
you have to do wheel and dealand get the right price and help
with the build out.
So I feel really that Isupported some entrepreneurs
there as well.
Um and that bank, St.
Louis Community Credit Union,has uh changed our neighborhood.

(30:36):
They invest in the neighbors,they invest, they've invested in
home improvement loans, in uhauto loans, in small business
loans, and it has to be a localbank that knows you as a
neighbor, but there was no bankthere to know them as a
neighbor, so they gotdiscriminated against just by
not having a bank.
And then we know of all theother kinds of discriminations
that happened.

(30:57):
So um this project has justbeyond my wildest expectation.
I had big plans for it, and Iknew that it would be good, but
I wasn't sure it would be goodso fast.
I mean, we're 100% occupied, andwe have been since we opened.
And phase two is gonna open umhopefully next year.
We we're starting at the fourthquarter, and it was the nursing
school and the nursing dorms andthe uh cafeteria for the it was

(31:19):
the kitchen and um mainmaintenance building.
And so that's all gonna be um areal support system, uh 81
low-income apartments for umworking people, and uh there are
all kinds of qualifications inin housing that you can come up
with, but we want to supportpeople who do work and teachers,
nurses, social workers, believeit or not, make those low

(31:40):
salaries that fall into lowincome.
What a shame.
Anyway, um and we build qualityapartments.
Everybody has a ri has a washerdryer, they have disposal,
microwave, you know, everythingthat you could possibly want.
They're not gigantic, butthey're really nice.
And we have a swimming pool, wehave a gym uh fitness center.
We're building in this new part,a new uh gymnasium that can
house all kinds of activitiesfor the community and the

(32:03):
tenants uh and uh a biggerconference in space.
And the gym was one of thoseold-fashioned, like elementary
school gyms, but it was anursing school for adults.
So it has a stage, you know,okay, and those really heavy old
velvet curtains that used tohave where we're changing all
that, and then it hasbasketball, a basketball court.
So we're um gonna open up somemore youth activities.

(32:24):
We have a lot of activities forseniors, but we don't have a lot
of activities for youth, andthere really aren't a lot of
children, but this will be a wayto attack attract children uh to
the neighborhood, pi people withchildren, and also bring them
from the local high schools thatare around to um after-school
basketball.
Uh, we're gonna build pickleballcourts, we're gonna have we have
outdoor um uh tables withchecker um chess tables, and

(32:47):
we're gonna have a movie,outdoor movies, so people from
the neighborhood can have allkinds of enjoyment.
We do have a park right near usthat we where they do
Shakespeare in the park and allthat, but it and we have Forest
Park right around the corner.
But this is like more like theirspace.
Right.
And honestly, um right on thecorner of of Clara and Belt,
when I drive home every night,there's a s right now this kids

(33:08):
are coming home from school, andthere's a school a uh gentleman
volunteers to be help the kidsoff the bus and make sure they
cross the street because it's abusy little corner.
And every day I think he mightwait for me to leave.
We have this relationship, and Ithink about that.
When I was a little girl, I usedto wave to my neighbor who I she
could see me in the window whenI came in the door.
He reminds me of that person,and and um they were building an

(33:29):
Amaron substation to up the antefor the electricity in the
neighborhood for the wholeneighborhood.
And um, all the workmen we waveat each other on the way into
work.
It's a beautiful day in ourneighborhood.
I even hum Mr.
Rogers' song, I am so proud ofwhat we've accomplished, but I'm
proud of the neighbors that theyshared with me what their dreams
and hopes were because theyweren't that different than
mine.

(33:49):
And um, no different actually.
And but they just didn't knowhow to go about it.
So together, um, we've broughtour the neighborhood
organizations meet at the DelmarDivine, we bring them together
so we do things together likeDelish on Del Mar, which happens
on Del Mar October 17th.
We do that together, the MakerDistrict and our district, which
is where Delmar Divine is, butDel Mar Main Street

(34:11):
organizational group and uhothers, and we need to do that
more than ever since the tornadoum that really torpedoed our
area.
Right.
Uh and um well, we we'verecovered recovered many of the
businesses on Del Bar have notyet recovered.
So we're working to bring peopleback and see the ones that have,
and don't think we were allwiped off the base face of the
map.
We weren't, and then help theproceeds help the ones that are

(34:33):
still digging themselves out.

SPEAKER_02 (34:35):
You are involved in so many different things.
What is the key to staying ontop of it or to feeling as
though you have your hands inall of it and feeling like
you're making a difference ineach and every one of those

(34:56):
those areas?

SPEAKER_01 (34:57):
Well, the real reason is the children.
Um children are um the future ofour country and of our city, and
if we can't help the children beas successful as possible, and
we have a lot of things in theway of that, um the then there's
not a future for St.
Louis because the the kids willleave and go somewhere else if
they can't find what they want,and we're not in a growing

(35:19):
population at this point.
We have to really work hard atthat.
So um I do it for them becausepeople did it for me.
I uh who who knew what I wasgonna be when I grew up.
Yeah, I just had wanted to beeverything.
You know, at some point in mylife I wanted to be everything.
And um, and I'm doing exactlythe work I'm meant to do.
And at the time I'm meant to doit.
It is joyful work, and joy isreally what what should fuel us

(35:42):
and hope, as you well know, thatthat we can make it better, that
we can individually make adifference.
But if you're just sitting andyou know, wringing your hands
and saying, Oh, whoever is me,and St.
Louis is so big, it's the worstthis and the worst that, and I'm
not from here.
I love St.
Louis.
I moved here uh and bought ahouse in Lafayette Square that I
could have never afforded inWashington, D.C.
where I came from, and madegreat friends because everybody

(36:04):
was redoing their houses and umit's so many connections started
there.
And I met my husband, and youknow, we have a great life
together.
And also I want to throw thisout too, because um you don't
really know, you can only planso many things in your life, and
I'm a reasonably good planner,but um in November my husband
had a stroke, and luckily forus, we live in St.

(36:25):
Louis, Missouri, where there'sincredible health care,
especially at WashingtonUniversity School of Medicine.
And um, it's the hardest jobI've ever had, and it's the one
I'm most prepared for becauseyou have to be a bulldog in the
system.
And my I went to the Universityof Georgia, so I'm a bulldog all
the way.
And um, you have to know how tonegotiate, navigate, and stand

(36:45):
up for yourself and askquestions and take notes, and
you know, thank God we haveotter because I can get it all
down and you know, while I'm litlistening.
And um, he's made a remarkable,you know, improvements, but it's
not easy.
And you know, it's hard work.
And what about the people thatdon't know all the people to get
in the door, or don't know,can't don't know what insurance

(37:06):
pays for or what it doesn't payfor, and may not have insurance,
although Medicare um does coverall these things for the most
part.
Um, but you have to know how tonavigate that system, and how to
advocate for yourself.
Yeah, definitely.
And if you're a single personand this happens to you, who
navigates for you or your familylives in another state?
And so, and it's a lonely timebecause all the things that my
the day before he had thestroke, he rode his bike 20

(37:28):
miles in Forest Park.
He was a very healthy person.
And all of a sudden now he can'tdo that.
So that was his out, his hisrelaxation was you know, going
out and going to the park.
And he's also an incredibleentrepreneur and civic-minded
person.
He started Casa de Salud and hestarted um the Mosaic Project to
bring more immigrants to uh St.
Louis.

(37:48):
Um he has out on the board ofSLU for a long time.
Uh amazing person.
And I, you know, we we dividedand conquered, worked in the
criminal justice system, makingsure that children don't get
caught up in that um as best wecan.
Um because when you turn overthe rock of poverty, um there
are you know a million spidersand their nets are knotted up,

(38:10):
their their uh webs, and youhave to help them unknot it.
And it's housing, homelessness,the criminal justice system, the
education system, the healthcaresystem, the mental health care
system, um, so many things thatthat cause those those knots.
And um and people just give up.
And uh we have a lot ofagencies, we have uh, you know,

(38:30):
over 20,000 agencies that arehelping people, but you know,
you don't know, and sometimesit's pride, it's a lot of other
things that keep you from thetools that could help you.
And so we all have to listen sothat we can lead that person.
We might not know of everything,but we might know of one thing,
or we have a friend who may knowthat, right?
And we can lead that persontowards a better um up, you
know, connection for them.

(38:51):
And we have everything in St.
Louis that you could possiblywant, probably more because of
Washington University and St.
Louis University, that are havea lot of research behind them
that are really solid, you know,programs, and uh the world
should know about them.
But so that keeps me going, andactually I've learned so much in
this process, especially with myhusband Bob, because you know,
we actually he actually knewthat he had a stroke from a a

(39:15):
program that we had seen thatwas produced here in St.
Louis called Brain Works thatstudied four different brain
injury brain um I guess diseasesis the right word to use.
And the first story that theytold, these two doctors wrote
these plays.

unknown (39:30):
Dr.

SPEAKER_01 (39:30):
Luthart and Dr.
Kim, they wrote these playscalled about these was about a
stroke, and a man who had astroke in his life as the stroke
happened, and then afterwards.
So he recognized the symptoms.
And he recognized the symptoms,and he called me right away and
he said, I think I'm having astroke, and I was really almost
home.
And we got him to the hospitalreally quickly.
And um, but he still had a aserious stroke, and um, he's

(39:52):
still in a wheelchair, but he'sdoing so much better, and I know
that he's going to be able to dothings that the doctors maybe
won't even tell you because theydon't want you to get your hopes
up to high.
But he's a hard worker and he'sa physically fit person.
So he knows that exercise isreally important.
That's what he loves, is the PTand the OT, you know, get up and
do that.
So um, you know, it's been nine,almost 10 months, and um who

(40:15):
would have thought it would havebeen that long?
I mean, they told us it would belong, but we didn't believe it
because you know we're both, youknow, movers and shakers and get
up and do everything on it.
But it is, it does take time,and it's another thing that sort
of humbles you about um whatelse is out there, and that's
another thing that we havethat's so incredible in St.
Louis, our healthcare system.
We have world-class healthcarehere, and we should be telling

(40:36):
the world about it because if Iwere gonna live anywhere, I'm
glad I live here because I canhave access to the probably
number one or two healthcaresystem in the country at
Washington University School ofMedicine in certain fields, but
SLU also is right around thecorner, and they work together
in many ways to you know help usfind the cure to some really
crazy things that are still outthere.

(40:57):
So I am um I've learned a lotand I sat there with him and I
wrote, kept a journal about whatwere the opportunities, not what
were the problems, what were theopportunities because I saw so
much you know, things that werewasteful, things that you know
uh people do because they haveto do it quick.
And um that I thought could beum you know opportunities for

(41:18):
new business models for people,how AI could come in and make
the nurse's job easier, a lot ofways.
And um so we're working on that.
You mentioned hope before.
How do you define hope?
Hope for me is like a future,you know, that that there's
someplace beyond today where itwhatever it is that you're

(41:39):
worried about can be resolved orget better.
Or um, like, you know, when youget sick and have a cold, you
know, you're not gonna be have acold forever.
There's, you know, I can't waittill I get better, this cold is
over.
It kind of is that way.
Like it isn't permanent.
You know, it it's the thingsthat are wrong are generally not
permanent.
And until, you know, your seniormost years or you have a really

(41:59):
terrible car accident, you canbe in charge of your life.
And um, you can make betterdecisions.
And sometimes we're just kidslonger than we should be.
You know, we're we're doingkid-like thinking instead of
adult thinking.
And there's a good thing aboutkid think, as I told you
earlier, it's creativity, it'sthat you if anything's possible,
why mommy?
Why can't we go here?
Why can't we do this?
Yeah, why?

(42:20):
Like that's what we need to beusing in St.
Louis.
Why can't we fix this?
Why can't we all volunteer?
Why can't we do and not to be atemporary thing because the
tornado is, you know, three orfour months ago.
No, we have to keep doing itbecause um St.
Louis deserves it, and there isa future for us.
It's a fantastic city.
Um and we we probably have thelow the best um cost of living

(42:42):
of any great place in the centerof the country that you could
possibly be.
And in fact, a lot of industriesexist in Missouri that exist
here because they can get toother, they can sell their
products to other states at arelatively low freight rate
because they can get it therepretty quickly.
Um that's why Amazon has so manywarehouses here, because they
can uh get stuff to peoplereally quickly from St.

(43:02):
Louis.
And we don't even think we don'teven tell that story.
Amazon knows more about us thanwe know, of course, because we
buy from them and know they knowevery little detail about us.
But um it's just such anopportunity to be here and to be
working on helping St.
Louis be all that it can be.
I love St.
Louis.
I do think St.
Louis has a forever, and I'mhopeful for what that forever

(43:23):
will be.

SPEAKER_02 (43:24):
What would you say to someone in terms of if
they're sitting in that spotwhere they think, I have a
dream, I think there's somethingmore I can be, and they're
listening to your story andthey're thinking, wow, there's
there's nothing this woman can'tdo.
Like she's she thinks it and shedoes it.

SPEAKER_01 (43:40):
No, I there are a lot of things I can't do, but I
know somebody who could help medo it.
Okay.
And that is really important.
You do not have to do it alone.
There is an ecosystem here inSt.
Louis that is open to people whoare very friendly.
And how do you get to thatperson that's going to be the
friendliest?
Sometimes you have to ask if youdo you know somebody.
I mean, I I'm constantlyspeaking to people, and we'll
def if I can't direct them tothe right person, then no one

(44:03):
can.
All the years I've been in St.
Louis, I know a lot of people.
And that's also very joyful.
My husband and I get a thrillout of doing that, you know, of
introducing, somebody tells usthey need something, you know,
oh, do you know a doctor forthis, or do you know a place I
can buy this?
And we do.
So we make that connection, andthat is such a simple thing.
Sometimes it takes five minutes,and um, sometimes it might take
five hours, but for the mostpart, it's one of the simplest.

(44:25):
You don't have to do it.
You're passing them on to theexpert.
And um and then connectingpeople to the resources for
entrepreneurship.
We have we have programs in St.
Louis that start in inchildhood.
We have my friend Arielle Biggs,her St.
Louis Biz Kids.
She works with young children.
Her son Mikey was anentrepreneur at eight years old.
That's when I first met him.
And now he has uh, I think adozen uh vending machines all

(44:49):
around town, and he's uhstarting to sell them off so he
can start other vendingmachines, kind of a it's not a
scheme or pyramid scheme, butteaching other kids that they
can own a business at 10 yearsold, 12 years old.
And his mother drove himeverywhere at the beginning to
buy the sodas at Costco and putthem in the machines.
But you know, he has a prettygood nest egg already, and God
bless him, you know.
And I met him when he was myheight, and he had a little

(45:09):
briefcase and it had his nameMikey, and his mother is an
amazing woman to, and she doesthis for other families too, to
help them inspire their childrenwith their talents.
Um, all the way up through ArchGrants and all the way up to
Washiou School of Medicine,where we have tremendous
entrepreneurs inventing curesall the time and and uh tools,
uh, you know, equipment thatmight help a patient walk.

(45:31):
Um unbelievable uh ecosystemhere.
I'm not sure there's anothercity like this.
And I'm sure I know there's notanother Arch Grants because
we've we've checked that oneout.
And I've asked kids that call mefrom other states to look in
their town and see if there'sthe right kind of um uh
nurturing program for anentrepreneur, and not doesn't

(45:51):
matter what age you are, butsomebody that you know, where
they have a small business groupor that people that work with
them, we have a lot in St.
Louis, like everything, we havea lot.
We just don't people just don'tknow how to access it.
So we have to make it easier.
But it's a big system and and uhit it works in so many different
ways.
So you don't have to do anythingalone.
I didn't do build-a bear alone.
Katie and Jack, you know, gaveme the idea of by saying, we can

(46:14):
make this.
And then what do you do withthat?
And then you could I could I wasdefinitely determined and I knew
how to do it.
I've been in retail a long time,but I didn't do it alone.
I don't know, I'm not a CFO.
I hired a CFO, I'm not a storeoperations, I never was in store
operations, I hired a person todo that.
You that's what you do is youbuild the plan, it's like a
giant canvas, and you let otherpeople paint on it to their

(46:36):
heart's content, so they canthey can be the person, the CFO
they want to be, the storeplanner they want to be.
And uh the other thing that wasreally important was to find,
make sure that there wassomebody to succeed me.
A lot of entrepreneurs are notgood at that.
Uh I have the best successoranybody could even hope for in
Sharon Price John.
We're friends, we talk a lot, weyou know, she she had to do a

(46:59):
lot of things her own way, andsome things I agreed with and
some things I didn't, but Isaid, let's try it, why not?
And some of the things thatworked and some didn't, but
Build-A-Bear is a thrivingcompany, and she has done, she
has lived the dream for me, sothat I Build-A-Bear is going on
for a much longer time and we'regonna soon be st celebrating our
30th anniversary.
Congratulations.

(47:19):
I am so proud of what the teamtoday has accomplished, and
there's many people that werethere from the s almost the
start of Build-A-Bear, butthere's also a lot of new people
that came to work in a companythat values them and wants them
to be successful and nurturesthem and teaches them different
aspects of the business if theywant to learn it.
And um, I'm so proud of whatSharon and the team have have
done, and I can just you knowstand back and enjoy it.

(47:44):
And I get to do some fun thingsfor Builder Bear, but you know,
it is mostly I get to hug thekids and go to places where
there's a lot of children andjust watch what we've done.
And it's it's not brain sciencein the sense of what the doctors
at at Washu are doing, but it isa a brain different kind of
brain science, a hug.
A hug is worth a million words,and that's really what St.

(48:07):
Louis does pretty well when wesee a tragedy, but we don't do
it all the time when um weshould be continuing these
projects.
And one thing, um, you know,when they had that shooting at
the Annunciation Um Catholicschool, that day at um Mall of
America store, which is onlyabout 10 minutes away, people
went to make bears to bring tothe children and make bears to

(48:30):
bring to the and I could see iton television that our bears, we
can recognize our bears fromacross.
I can too.
That that they were doing theirjob.
They were they were they that'swhat they wanted to.
I know it sounds like I'm crazy,but they want to be there for
that child, for that adult, forthat that sad time and that
happy time.
That's what they're there for.
They're you they they you cantell them your deepest dark at

(48:52):
sea for you, they're not gonnashare them with anybody.
You can tell them how sad youare, they're not gonna laugh at
you or make think you're beingsilly, they're just gonna be
there for you.
And um, they have been for overwell over a hundred years.
The teddy bear was invented in1902, and they will be forever
because nothing can replace astuffed animal.
It doesn't have to be a teddybear anymore.
It can be a kitty cat, a dog, aPokemon, a Star Wars.

(49:13):
I mean, that's what Bilderbearhas brought to the table.
We've reimagined what a huggablefriend can be.
And it doesn't matter whetherthat frog wears a wedding dress
or a baseball outfit.
It doesn't matter.
It's the child's imagination.
And that's what we love, love,love seeing every single day.
And we hope that they'llremember those experiences.

(49:34):
And we we, you know, the firstchildren that came to make bears
in our store now work for us, orthey're bringing their own
children in to build a bear.
That's amazing.
And we get letters about that.
That this I I wanted it to be asgood as it was when I was a kid,
and it was even better.
You know, that that is that isjoy too.
But I get joy in in multiplethings, but it's still a hug.
That's uh the Del Mar Divine isa hug for a neighborhood.

(49:55):
The other work that we're doingat the trees, I guess you could
call me a tree hugger, we'rewe're putting together a program
that children, children andtheir families can make a
difference by just collectingpennies and dimes and nickels
that we can all put together andadd to the collaboration of
bringing these trees back to St.
Louis.
Where will those boxes be?
We're going to distribute themin many different places,
libraries and um schools and uhlocal businesses.

(50:18):
So you'll be hearing about andpeople will drop off their
coins.
We haven't figured that part outyet, but yes, they will.
They'll bring them to a centrallocation, and we're working on
that with um a couple of uh uhneighborhood.
We want them to be in theneighborhood.
So um everybody's afraid to haveall the responsibility for all
this money.
I said, I hope it's as much asyou think it is.
Right, but I think we'll figurethat out.
Perfect.
And where can people learn moreabout that?
We have a web strip website, uhtrick or tree stl.com, but it's

(50:43):
doesn't have much there yet.
Okay.
Every day it'll have new newinformation, and we are um uh
just really putting together allthe materials.
When I leave here, I'm going towork with the the printer on the
boxes that we're gonnadistribute for free to
everybody.
Um I remember my UNICEF box.
I think I have it in some box athome somewhere.
I'm sure I still have minesomewhere.
You know, and uh, you know,we'll see how it can go.

(51:03):
But I mean when I called uhMissouri, I didn't know her,
Meredith Perkins, who runsMissouri Relief Missouri, we had
an instant connection because weboth cared about this particular
issue that we have in St.
Louis.
She've been working on it.
I called Leslie Hofarth at atForest Park Forever, and she was
so open to it, and her team wasreally open to it.
And everybody that we're talkingto, we're asking for some

(51:24):
donations to help us with theprinting and some of the
materials.
Everybody said yes so far.
I mean, people want to do good,and they just don't, they don't
have to do it themselves, andthey maybe didn't have the idea
that I had.
And I'm it's you know, we'reputting some resources from our
foundation behind it just to getit going.
Seed found, you know, the a teamI hired a woman to work for us
for three months to help withmarketing, and she's phenomenal,

(51:45):
and she's doing a great jobalready.
She started on Monday.
So, you know, you can do thesethings pretty quickly.
In fact, sometimes the fasteryou do it, the the better.
Better it is.
And Delish on Del Mar, we did ina short time last year.
We're doing it again, and um,we'll tell more people.
But we had 3,000 people show upfor Delish on Del Bar last year.
Dancing in the streets, sittingin the tables, strangers buying

(52:05):
at the little pop-up shops wherethere were kids and adults with
their pop-up products.
So you can you can laceentrepreneurship, um, music,
talent, uh, city development,community development, all
together in in just aboutanything that you do in St.
Louis pretty easily.
And you were sitting here in theGrand Center area, and what the
Kransbergs have built here forthe arts is just something I

(52:28):
admire.
They're friends of mine.
They motivate me every day justto know that that this is
possible.
And the more things that we dolike that, what they did and
what we've done, and what otherpeople are doing, there's my
friends Ken and and and umBeverly uh in uh the Delwood
area that built R.
They're just amazing people.

(52:49):
And you you find there's more ofyou out there than you think,
and then you have so many morepeople to be hugging, you know.
It's uh there's so many peoplethat that are doing amazing
things in St.
Louis that we're small enoughthat you can know them.
But we're also small enough thatwhen you do something, it's
gonna make a difference, andwe're big enough that when we
when we do it, it matters.
Right.
You know, so uh it's this is aperfect city actually for you

(53:10):
know so much opportunity and uhuh of change, not just for St.
Louis, but to teach otherpeople.
In fact, I got a um uh I getphone calls from all over the
country for people to come andsee Del Mar Nevine, as if it was
some impossible idea.
But we just took an old hospitaland turned it into, you know, a
still a caring place.
It'll be a caring place forever,it just won't be a hospital.
Um and I don't think it's fancy,but a lot of people say to me,

(53:31):
Oh, it's fancy, but it it reallyisn't.
It's it's a sim basic building,but it was a really strong
structure.
So when the tornado came rightdown Del Mar, we we didn't lose
our building at all.
We just lost the airconditioners on the top of the
roof.
But um, that's just replaceable.
Um, so many homes that had beenum not really repaired, not with
tuck good tuck pointing, or nottuck point in a long time, just

(53:54):
you know, disintegrated in thewind and the trees so sad.
Um but they'll be back and andit gives all of us an
opportunity to buy one tree,which maybe is 30 bucks or
something, yeah, like or less.
Um think about that.
That's something you could do,and that tree will be here
standing and growing, you know,hundreds of years from now, just
like those trees were there forus to enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 (54:13):
So you mentioned that you've done everything in
the exact right time that you'resupposed to be doing it.
Is there anything that you'vedone that falls into the the
category of like this is whatI'm most proud of?

SPEAKER_01 (54:27):
Oh, so many things.
Um, so many things.
I uh I I'm really proud of how Ievolved.
You know, that how I um becausemy mother was a social worker,
even though she was an untrainedsocial worker and she wanted me
to be a she was a socialist andI wanted to be a capitalist, you
know, kind of thing.
But I am my mother's daughter.
And I'm also my father'sdaughter, who was a small

(54:49):
business person, and he neversaid he was an entrepreneur.
He used to say it when he wroteWhat's Your Occupation?
Small business owner.
He was elect electrician, andthen he was became a salesman.
I am their dream.
That's my grandparents came tothis country for me, and they
didn't even know I wasn't eventhey didn't even have their own
children then.
They came for me, and I havetried to to live that life that

(55:09):
I think they wanted, and Ididn't even really know them.
They they hardly spoke English,and they died young, and so I
was just a little child.
So I just really think that theum they would I want my mother
died young too.
She died at 55 years old.
She was an amazing force ofnature.
And I I went to be thatcapitalist still.
I still wanted to do that, butI've also done the work that she

(55:31):
would have done too, and maybeuh not quite as good in some
places and other places becauseI have different interests uh
really strongly, but also myteachers, they played such an
incredible role in my life.
And you don't always we didn'thave social media, so you
couldn't get you didn't havetheir phone number.
Couldn't you know Mrs.
or Mr.
So-and-so, but I'm friends witha lot of my teachers, by the
way, because they're never thatmuch older than you.

(55:53):
Right.
And um uh they're five or sixyears older than you, but you
think they're a lot older thanyou when you're in school, and
especially your high schoolteachers.
And I am still in touch with alot of my teachers.
I'm in touch with my friendsthat I grew up with.
We have a very unique growing upexperience because we lived in
Miami, Florida, and we had thisincredible influx of Cuban
refugees to Miami as children,and we all got to be friends

(56:16):
with new people, and that wasour job.
We were we were supposed to befriendly, we were supposed to be
helpful and show them where thelockers were and show them.
And uh and we talk about this alot because we have these Zoom
reunions all the time that we gotogether.
We had 1,200 people in my seniorclass.
We don't have 1,200 people onthese calls, but um to be able
to be friends with people whoyou can't hide from, they know

(56:36):
who you are because they weresitting next to you in the fifth
grade.
Right.
Um, you know, but just all thatblends together, and it's me,
it's not any one thing that'smade me who I am today.
It's all those things addedtogether, and that's what I try
to tell children who I know areunder stress that this is a
learn, this is part of theexperience of life.
And if you chalk it up to, youknow, education, and then do the

(56:58):
what do you want to be when yougrow up right now?
What is it what is it thatyou're thinking of?
And what kind of things can wedo for you that will get you on
that track?
And I think all of us in St.
Louis, it's one opportunity wereally have, is to allow those
children, especially high schoolkids, to be interns in our
businesses to and paid internsto see they are brilliant, by
the way.
We have summer interns everysummer.

(57:19):
We have learned so much from ourinterns.
And um they're not all thecollege students who have a
certain level of differentcompetency than the high school
students.
We had a 16-year-old thissummer, an unbelievable
contribution to our business anduh to our family foundation.
And we give them real projectsand we make them write that out
on their resume, and they alwaysunderestimate how much impact

(57:39):
they had because they're kids.
Right.
And you know, you have to helpkids realize that they really
did something.
When you were telling me aboutyour son who is a broadcaster,
and I'm thinking, wow, I was ajournalism major.
I don't think I could have donethat.
And I was a little bit olderthan him, and I think, well,
maybe the same age at the time.
I was a great writer, but Iwasn't necessarily uh a and I
love sports, but I don't think Icould have ever been a sports

(58:01):
commentator.
And I think it's so fast and sofurious, and you gotta know all
this history, and you gotta knowthe players, and you gotta have
it all in your head.
And I'm I just admire that a ayoung person is so focused on
doing something like that.
So that is just interesting tome.
And I I I want to kind I when Ifind I'd love to meet him and
just kind of ask him a fewquestions because I want to know
what makes that brain.
You know, I I feel the same way.

(58:22):
I want to I want to know.
And and I think that's the kindof curiosity that people how you
get to know people mean you getto know them, and then you're
they're your neighbor, they'renot your a stranger.
Um you know two things aboutthem, and now you can feel a
connection to them.
And when people come intoDalmardi and come to meet me or
come to see the building, andwhen they leave, I say, Can I
give you a hug?
And they always say yes.
And you know, that that issomething for me that um you

(58:46):
know is just important thatpeople realize that I mean this.
I'm not this isn't a hobby.
This is who my parents raised meto be.
Right.
And my grandparents hoped Iwould be, they didn't know me.
But when the that that's whatwhat the American dream is, and
I live that American dream, butI'm also contributing to other
people's dream.
You absolutely are.
But I have to find out what itis, you know, I have to dig in a

(59:06):
little bit.

SPEAKER_02 (59:07):
But I think that that's one of the things that's
so beautiful and unique aboutyou and your light is that you
really do want to get to knowevery person that you come into
contact with, and you want tohelp bring forth their light.
And how can you help themcontribute to their own
community and what can you do tohelp them?
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (59:27):
And and I walk away with so much more than I gave,
uh, truly.
I think it is so joyful to beable to know new people, meet
new people that you never knewbefore, and still keep up with
the people you've grown up with.
And also to help them havebecause when you ask them what
you know about their life, theyth they they don't necessarily

(59:48):
think they have a bad life andthey don't.
But how do you make it better?
You know, how do you how do youenhance it?
And how do you use your giftsfor your children have so much
to contribute, so much tocontribute, and I have my most
fun with you.
With young people when they cometo the building, I always
measure myself against them.
You know, like like said whenall right, next year when you
come back, I'll we'll have tomeasure again.
Because I'm mostly I see eye toeye with these kids and I love

(01:00:09):
that.
And I I'll sit down and be attheir level because people did
that for me and um allowed me tobe uh I never thought of myself
as small.
I my favorite animal is agiraffe.
And I have giraffes, little, youknow, ceramic giraffes and
stuff.
And I just think that thatthere's another kid out there
that has the same, wants to be agiraffe too, right, or isn't

(01:00:30):
wants to be something else, abroadcaster or a ballerina.
And how do we help them be allthose things that that they um
wish for themselves and theyjust don't know how to go about
it?
And we have we have every one ofthose resources right here in
St.
Louis, every single thing that achild could want to be, we could
take them to see how how to getthere.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:49):
It has been such a delight to sit and have this
conversation with you.
You are truly an inspiration.
Is there anything I didn't askyou about that you want to share
as we're closing out today?

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:59):
No, I just would say that um you know I'm pretty
accessible uh on LinkedIn anduh, you know, everything about
my you and my email addressesand my LinkedIn context because
again, most of what people want,they don't want to 100% of your
time, they just want to knowwhere to go for this or how to
how to do that.
And having been an entrepreneur,I've learned a lot.
And I'd I like to help as manypeople be successful in St.

(01:01:21):
Louis.
Uh my goal is you know live to100 and have uh, you know, is
make as long a contribution hereand see the fruits of our labors
that we all are giving into thecity to uh make it all that it
can be.
And so I'm I'm there if peoplewant to contact me, uh a
LinkedIn message is is easy, andif I can help, I will.
You are if not, I'll findsomebody that can.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:42):
You are extraordinary.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
For taking time with me and forsharing your wisdom and your
heart and your hope and yourlight.
I am incredibly grateful.
Wonderful to see you again.
Thank you for inviting me.
Thank you likewise.
Friends, thank you so much forspending time with Maxine and I.
And I hope you are as inspiredas I am by our conversation.
Please take the time to sharethis podcast with your friends

(01:02:05):
and spread this light around.
Between now and the time wespend time together again.
Please take good care of you.
Thank you for being here.
Naturally, it's important tothank the people who support and
sponsor the podcast.
This episode is supported byChris Dulley, a trusted criminal
defense attorney and friend ofmine here in St.

(01:02:26):
Louis, who believes in secondchances and solid
representation.
Whether you're facing a DWI,felony, or traffic issue, Chris
handles your case personallywith clarity, compassion, and
over 15 years of experience.
When things feel uncertain, ithelps to have someone steady in
your corner.
Call 314 384 4000 or 314 DUIHelp, or you can visit

(01:02:49):
Dulilawfirm.com to schedule yourfree consultation.