LaSalle Park 2024 Year in Review

We’ve had another busy year in LaSalle Park!

Mardis Gras 2024

For the third year in a row, LaSalle Park volunteers manned a double beer tent in support of Soulard Mardi Gras. Lots of challenges this year with no rideshare drop-offs taking place at our location, which significantly reduced foot traffic from

previous years. In spite of this, we still managed to raise $2,300 for the neighborhood association across all revenue sources.

Community Building: Kickball games

The Association funded just one formal kickball games with neighborhood kids this summer, including food, drinks, and outdoor gifts. We had budgeted for more events, but location move to Ray Leisure Park due to poor conditions in the park at Hickory and 10th street impacted attendance so further events were scratched for 2024.

Beautification: New LaSalle Park Mural

While not an accomplishment of the board per se, our neighborhood was awarded a mural grant. Directly in front of St. Vincent de Paul Church, the resulting mural highlights “Connections” in a stained-glass motif. Many thanks to resident artists Zach Chasnoff and former resident Simiya Sudduth for making this happen to brighten up LaSalle Park.

Photo Copyright Regional Arts Commission

Beautification: Purina Cares... supplying Tree Planting and Cleanup

Our corporate neighbor Purina showed up in a big way to contribute to LaSalle Park for “Purina Cares” day, 2024. Two busloads of volunteers spent hours planting trees throughout the neighborhood and spreading mulch and weeding. We had 40+ volunteers! See other Purina contributions below... meanwhile, Thank You Purina! You’re a great neighbor! We hope to collaborate again next year.

Community Building: Music on the Mall

We partnered with Employment Connection and the Mental Health Board for several community-building events, including several concerts on the mall. We

kicked off the year with Bob Row and Dawn Weber with dozens in attendance. We then featured the Bob Row / Vince Martin trio, which attracted 58 registered attendees. We hosted the infamous Soulard Blues Band for Music on the Mall in mid-September, playing to 67 registered attendees in spite of the rain. Our final event featured the Killer Wails and had 92 registered attendees. We endeavored to deliver a flyer for each event to every household in LaSalle Park ... 1,000 thanks to Ed Mehler for the amazing flyer designs! Cost of flyers covered by Mental Health Board grant, see below.

Community Building: 10/1/24 National Night Out

LaSalle Park teamed up with Employment Connection to celebrate Neighborhood

Night out, with sponsorship of the event via a grant from the Mental Health Board. We had live music by the Bob Row Trio which alternated with DJ music donated by our very own neighborhood DJ, John Hoffman. We had a tasting tent from 4Hands Brewery, and many neighbors brought a dish to share. Our favorite circus performer Lindy Wormwood again brought her tight rope and tirelessly helped the kids learn a new skill. Special guests included an SLFD Fire Truck and SLMPD, which delighted the 135 residents that registered at the event!

Community Building: LaSalle-O-Ween / aka Nightmare on 10th Street

LaSalle neighbors Amanda and Zach Chasnoff teamed with LPCA and the Employment Connection for Nightmare on 10th Street, a Halloween gathering on the mall featuring candy, chili, hot dogs, and hot apple cider. We even had spooky things projected on the neighboring buildings! This was a very popular event, drawing 110 registrations across all attendees.

Other highlights include $65,000+ in donations to LaSalle Park this year!

Aside from numerous meetings with city officials / STL Housing Authority on safety

concerns, the broader community is engaging in support of LaSalle Park including:

• Donation from Purina of $5,000 for Purina Cares day and $28,000 for security cameras linked into SLMPD

• Grant for $2,500 from St. Louis University for neighborhood organization (thanks Angie Mouton!)

• Donation from 4 Hands Brewery for 2023 & 2024 (estimated $12,000 per year), projects to be approved prior to distribution

• Total donation of nearly $20,000 between City of St. Louis and 4 Hands Brewery for traffic-calming project on Park Avenue which will add a crosswalk, more bump-outs, and planters to make bump-out more visible (LaSalle Park contributed $5,000 as well).

• $5,000 grant from Mental Health Board to LPCA and Employment Connection to cover most of the Community Building Events listed above

• Also, HUGE WIN at 1000 Morrison: our pro-bono lawyer Peter Hoffman of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri got the job done and negligent owners agreed to donate the property to responsible party for $0. Many thanks to Meg Holmes for carrying the torch for us here *

From your LaSalle Park Community Board, including:

Amanda Chasnoff - President; Brent Homes - VP; Colleen Finnegan – Secretary; Deb Aerne – Treasurer; Angie Mouton - Director at Large

Zach and Simiya's mural "Connections"

You can always reach us at LPNASTL@gmail.com