Friends, all I want for my birthday this year is for my organization, Bread and Roses Missouri, to be able to continue the good work we are doing to amplify and elevate the voices of working people through the arts.

We had a lot of momentum going into 2025 after a HUGE 2024 where we produced our first Social Justice Shorts Festival with A Call to Conscience, premiered The Caregiving Project, and toured our Workers' Opera across the state of Missouri. Plus, we had a successful Youth Initiative that served free arts workshops to almost 600 children.

2025 has been a challenge, to put it mildly. We are in limbo on two major grant applications tied to NEA funds the current administration hasn't released, so no grants have been awarded--and they may never be. We were denied the right to apply for funding by our state arts agency after nine solid years of continuous funding for our Youth Initiative. And on May 16, our office in the SEIU building on Pershing Avenue was hit by the tornado that devastated so many in our city. We are still displaced while repairs are ongoing.

And yet . . . we are not deterred! We just produced our SECOND successful Social Justice Shorts Festival with a beautiful cast and creative team. We still launched our Summer Youth Initiative this week at 16 sites in St. Louis City and County. And we are developing a new play, A Brick and A Bible, about the Funsten Nutpickers Strike that was led by Black women in Depression-era St. Louis.

Our staff and our artists can make a LOT happen with a little. But the constant scramble for resources is exhausting. We need help to sustain our efforts, and to make it to 2026. In celebration of my birthday, and also the 10th birthday of this tremendous organization that fights for access to the arts for working people every day, I'd be grateful for your donation. Will you consider $10 per month in honor of Bread & Roess 10 years, and become a sustaining donor?

Whatever you are able to give, I am truly grateful.

Emily (who is much older than Bread & Roses, but I won't tell how much . . . )

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As the labor hymn for which the organization is named reminds us, “Hearts starve as well as bodies…give us bread and give us roses.”

Bread and Roses Missouri uses an arts lens to examine social and economic justice issues in all our programming. We believe that cultural and creative expression are a means to effect deep and lasting social change. We organize and participate in arts and humanities events, exhibits and workshops for and about workers and their families. We educate and activate participants and audiences toward achieving an economic base that benefits the entire community.

Emily's Birthday Fundraiser for Bread & Roses