Humans of St. Louis:
Civic City Fellows

Editor’s Note: Over the next few days, we’re sharing the story of Civic City Fellows as part of a Humans of St. Louis and STLMade collaboration profiling ongoing tornado recovery efforts across St. Louis. We will update this story with new content as it publishes on our Facebook and Instagram pages this week. And learn how to get involved in tornado relief and recovery efforts across St. Louis.

A city for some builds systems that lock people out. A city for all opens doors, restores trust, and expands what’s possible for every resident.

What if the people closest to the city’s challenges were trusted to help shape its future?

That question sits at the heart of Civic City, a local civic design studio co-founded by Darren Jackson and Sara Bannoura. 

Last summer, just one month after the May 16 tornado, students from Saint Louis Public Schools came together for Civic City’s first youth Fellowship in collaboration with the St. Louis Education Fund and Show Me The World Project.

Over two weeks, students explored issues affecting their neighborhoods, like food access, transportation, mental health, public safety, vacant lots, and the digital divide. They studied local government, shared personal stories, researched community challenges, and created a resolution calling on STL to rebuild with youth voices at the table. Then they took that resolution to the City of St. Louis.

HOSTL was invited to their final presentation last June at Saint Louis University. Listening, it was evident just how much work they put into understanding the challenges facing our city and the solutions they wanted to see. And a month later, they were honored guests at City Hall, presenting their resolution during a City Youth Council mock Board of Aldermen session. Camera in hand, we documented both.

Witnessing the Fellows’ accomplishments was inspirational, because how often are teenagers in our city given a chance to weigh in on topics like a natural disaster, which affected so many, including themselves?

This summer, a new 2026 cohort is building on that work in a different way.

Last year’s students identified challenges and priorities. This year’s students are building solutions for them through technology, design, and problem-solving. As the 2026 cohort develops its projects, we wanted to look back at the students who helped lay the foundation. Over the next few days, we’ll be sharing pieces of their journey, their ideas, and the future they hope to see for St. Louis.

“The tornado changed so much for our fellows. Almost everyone had been impacted in some way. Some had damage to their homes. Some were at school, and debris broke windows. But one in particular experienced the most devastating loss: her grandmother in the basement of a church.

The room changed when she shared this with us. You could feel the weight of it. The students held space for her with so much care. Suddenly, this wasn’t just something we were researching or talking about. It was personal. It was real.

And in a lot of ways, that moment opened the door for others to start sharing too. At first, many of the students weren’t sure if what they carried was worth naming. But day by day, more of them stepped into their stories, and it was an honor watching that unfold.

We shifted, adapted, and made room for things that demanded more space. Our fellows wrestled with some really tough questions. They explored challenges, identified possibilities, and mapped community solutions. By the end, they co-created a public declaration centered around one guiding question:

What do we believe every child in St. Louis deserves as they play, learn, grow, and heal?

We grounded the work in some of my favorite things to talk about: research, storytelling, and advocacy. We explored design thinking using an internal framework that uses community-led knowledge, narrative, and design goals to build new systems and solutions.

We discovered stories, our own and each other’s. We watched news coverage and talked about the power of storytelling and story omission. We looked at how stories not only reflect but also shape our reality, or our perception of it. We explored media across formats, and practiced how to interview with care and curiosity. And through empathy mapping, students learned to better understand how people see, feel, hear, and experience the world.

They started to realize how their stories were not just individual experiences but something much more. They were connected to each other, connected to the city, and connected to systems much larger than themselves.”

Sara Bannoura, Co-Founder, Civic City

“This Fellowship was designed to help our young leaders become active participants in civic life. Today, I’m proud to say every student can name their neighborhood, the ward they live in, their alderperson, and explain how a bill becomes law. This kind of civic awareness is so important, but too often taken for granted.

I share this as someone who didn’t grow up here and didn’t always feel this way. I was raised in Palestine, where politics wasn’t something you participated in. It was power exercised over you. So when I moved to the United States, I kept my distance.

Even as I entered the field of journalism, I avoided all things politics as long as I could and for as much as I could get away with. It was too complicated, too out of reach. Like it belonged to someone else. It wasn’t until my second year working inside a newsroom that I began intentionally studying local government and learning what the Board of Aldermen actually does. I went through college and two years in local news before fully confronting how close government is to our daily lives. Working in the newsroom during the pandemic made that impossible to ignore. I saw in real time how systems operate, and what happens to our communities when they fail.

And as I tell you this, my family overseas feels those ripple effects, too. The consequences of decisions and policies made thousands of miles away here in the U.S. This is when civic participation stops being abstract and becomes personal.

Our Fellows will soon be able to vote. And I don’t want their voice to be far from the ballot. I don’t want their dreams to skip the possibility of one day representing their neighbors and communities. I want them to see themselves not just as participants in democracy, but as leaders shaping it.”

Sara Bannoura, Co-Founder, Civic City

“We had the opportunity to meet with Alderwoman Laura Keys of the 11th Ward, who spoke to our fellows about everyday leadership and the mechanics of public service. She walked them through how a single idea becomes policy: how lived experience becomes a draft, how a draft becomes a bill, and how a bill becomes law.

But she didn’t present government as something distant or abstract. She made it personal. ‘I am the elected official of the people of the Elevated 11th Ward,’ she told them. ‘Your moms and dads, they’re my bosses.’

In that moment, government felt closer. Tangible. Human. She modeled what it looks like to translate community voice into action. And she reminded our students that democracy is not reserved for a select few. It belongs to everybody.”

Sara Bannoura, Co-Founder, Civic City

“We began with the Story of Self. We asked:

• What shaped you?
• What have you overcome?
• What experiences have defined you?

Then, we moved to the Story of Us:

• What does our community value?
• What does it endure?
• What binds us together?

Finally, we explored the Story of Now:

• As St. Louis rebuilds, what must happen right now to ensure every child can play, learn, grow, and prosper?
• Who are we rebuilding for?
• How do we ensure the future is built with them, not around them?

It was a little difficult at first. When I introduced the first assignment, one student asked, ‘What if you don’t have a story? What if you don’t have a challenge to name?’ 

Later, we learned he had lost his best friend in a hit-and-run the year before, the deadliest year on record for pedestrians in St. Louis City and County. That’s the thing about stories. Sometimes they’re buried beneath grief and survival. Sometimes we need the right questions, a gentle nudge, or to hear someone else’s voice before we’re able to find our own. Although it was difficult for the students to pinpoint some of their stories, they were within.

We watched a TED Talk by a young hip-hop artist who challenged us to be the authors of our lives. To dare to name a vision, to write it down, and speak it aloud. He asked, ‘What would you title the current chapter of your life?’

My favorite answer was, ‘Here All Along.’

That stayed with me. Their stories, their power, their voice — they were all here all along. It all just needed space to emerge.”

Sara Bannoura, Co-Founder, Civic City

“2024 was the deadliest year on record for pedestrians in St. Louis City and County. In the city alone, 23 pedestrians were killed, often on wide, fast, and poorly designed roads. Our neighborhoods need safer streets, slower traffic, and better crossroads, not more tragedy.”

Carmen, Civic City Fellows