♪♪ - Welcome to Living St.

Louis.

I'm Brooke Butler, and I'm here at the Science Center where Curiosity kind of comes with the territory.

And right now that Curiosity is getting a major upgrade at the McDonald Planetarium.

Crews are working on a major renovation that will make it one of the most advanced planetariums in the country.

It's the first major renovation the planetarium has had in 25 years, bringing in technology that will map over 100 million stars in a fully immersive 360 degree experience.

But that curiosity isn't just happening here.

Our stories today show how connection and innovation are happening with our region's future leaders.

On This Living St.

Louis, a middle school robotics team in Troy takes on high level competition on a global stage.

Competition Day is I just get to hang out and watch everything and just be there and be their cheerleaders and support them.

And they do all of the work.

A local woman offers college students something many of them are missing.

Support that feels like home.

In a place where many people are from very far away that there was an opportunity to help.

Students at LIFT for LIFE Academy share honest perspectives on education in St.

Louis and Wash U entrepreneurs turn chickpeas into a bold new breakfast idea.

It's all next on Living St.

Louis.

♪♪ - The St.

Louis Science Center works to inspire everyone to engage with science.

In Troy, Missouri, their K through 12 kids are taking things to another level.

They're combining science with technology, engineering, and mathematics to get robots.

Ahead of the VEX Robotics World Championship in St.

Louis this April, we sat down with the special qualifying team.

This is Lauren and Macie, and they make up the Engineering Barbies, a girl-powered VEX Robotics middle school team out of Troy, Missouri.

Starting with just a bucket of parts at the beginning of the school year to competing in tournaments with a full functioning robot, the goal for them is to make it to state and national championships, because after that, they could take one of seven spots to compete in the VEX Robotics World Championship this year in St.

Louis.

Lauren and Macie have been doing robotics for about two years.

Do we have air?

A little bit.

I really like the engineering and being able to test a bunch of different ideas and, you know, change things and competing.

I really like to build, so I joined Robotics of the Hill.

Robotics involves the use of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Yes, they build robots, but there's a lot more to it.

Here they are competing at a tournament in Troy, one of the many that brings them closer to worlds.

At these tournaments, they have to code, drive, strategize, notebook everything for judges, collaborate, and compete.

With a lot of trial and error.

Really the game, it just changes a lot what you need from your robot and what you build and there's just a lot of things that sometimes they don't work together so you just have to redo and redo and you usually just end up with the best result that you can build.

The game this year for the VEX V5 Robotics Competition is called Push Back.

It takes place on a 12 foot by 12 foot playing field with 88 blocks.

A red alliance and a blue alliance made up of two teams each compete in matches.

You gain points by scoring blocks into goals and making it back to the parking zone before the end.

It's about a two minute match, a quick game, where every point matters.

And the students are in charge.

I am not allowed to say a word.

Like competition day is I just get to hang out and watch everything and just be there and be their cheerleaders and support them and encourage.

And they do all of the work.

Kids being in charge isn't a common narrative.

But coach Jenni tells me that for robotics, it can be an important part of empowering the students.

Jenni - The critical thinking and the problem solving skills that they're getting out of it is just something no matter what field, what job, it doesn't have to be robotics or programming related that they're going to do as they go on to college.

Those things are going to benefit them in any position that they're going to do as well as just life skills and their learning and things that they don't learn in other classes, just in a different way or, and for some of our students, they might struggle with like their core classes.

They may not be super into like, like ELA class or math class, but robotics is their thing.

Programs like this in rural Missouri haven't always existed.

In 2019, the Missouri University of Technology and Science partnered with Project Lead the Way, a non-profit that promotes pre-engineering courses in K-12 schools.

They bring state-funded grants to districts and serve more than 600 public and private school districts in the state.

But just as programs like this are more unique, so are all-girl teams.

Most robotics teams are co-ed, or just the boys.

"Last year they started as an all-girls team and they just wanted to be just the girls.

They didn't want to be with the boys, which was fine.

And really I think they're underestimated.

So we see that a lot with our girls in STEM.

They really are very, very knowledgeable and can very much keep up with some of the boys.

So to be able to just see them grow and where they've come from is amazing.

They're just rocking and rolling and they got their bid to state early in the season with a design award and a robot skills champion award right away.

So that's just super excited.

And now we're focusing on just their tweaking things and getting a game plan together for state because after going to worlds one year, every team wants to go back again.

Once you go once, it's hard not to go again.

For these kids, robotics is like a sport.

I saw firsthand just how exciting yet intense tournaments leading up to worlds can be.

Judges are crawling on the floor to inspect final placements.

Students are tinkering with their robots over and over.

Lauren and Macie hope other kids get to experience it, too.

If you really work hard enough, then you can do a lot of different stuff.

And it's not like you have to be able to be the best at everything.

You can just kind of have your category and do your thing, but with your team.

And it's a lot of fun.

It is going to take a lot of time.

It's going to be frustrating.

But if you just stick to it and you just keep going and eventually you'll be able to find good design for a robot and you'll have a team to work with and you all can communicate and also in robotics, I hope for them to learn problem-solving and teamwork skills.

Do it!

Don't let the funding or the time or thinking your students are not in the right area or have the abilities because they have so many abilities.

Like just do it.

Let the kids do it.

Like the student led, I don't have to do a whole lot.

They come in, they get the robots out, they clean up, they set the fields.

Like we're having an event, they set up everything for it.

Like they just do it, let them have the experience of it.

And they will just grow.

For students in St.

Louis, school is rarely just about the classes.

It's about navigating the challenges, building resilience and thinking about what's next.

We hear a lot about schools in St.

Louis, but rarely from the students themselves.

Earlier this school year, we sat down with Lift for Life Academy students to hear about their experience and how it impacts their future.

(School bell rings) (Students sit in a classroom) I got a question for y'all.

When people hear your name, what do you want them to think about you?

Hard work and being nice.

I want them to know I was fresh, I ain't gonna say.

I want them to know, like, she was a leader and she tried her best.

She put her best foot forward no matter what, and she was never comfortable.

At all.

I would say, hmm, Chosen, one of the ones.

I got a lot of stuff and I stood on business.

What's your GPA?

3.9.

Number 4, that's right.

Miss Lipton, guys.

I said, uh, man, it's just an amazing young man, bro.

Nothing bad.

I don't think nobody ever gonna have nothing bad to say about me, though.

We not just bad.

I got a goal.

I have a lot of goals.

We had the palace, we had saints, we had angels, we had cody's, we had the limelight, we had the spotlight.

So we had all of these places that we could go be teenagers at, we could go be kids at, right?

So in the city, right, what's something you would want to see changed for your, for kids your age now and in the future?

For me it would be more of those like Meet up spots that y'all had if I could stay here I would and go to Wash U Wash U is a great medical school in the city of st.

Louis I would consider staying here and going to SLU for law.

I want to go to SIUE They got a really good nursing program 20 years from now y'all will be about my age (Laughter) 20 years from now, y'all will be above my age.

We're not gonna be kids forever, and soon enough we're gonna be grown.

We're gonna be alongside you or in front.

Hopefully in front.

That's the goal.

The goal is always that y'all be better than we were.

So hopefully in front.

So I am Dr.

Echols, licensed clinical social worker of 8th Dimension Wellness Center, and I provide behavioral health therapy here at Lift for Life Academy.

My name is Mike Jones.

I guess title would be entrepreneur.

I own several businesses within the St.

Louis community.

Started the OTM club here at Lift for Life about five years a I'm also the alumni director of Cardinal Ritter.

I think it'll do the city a great justice to hear straight from the mouth of these talented and smart and opinionated scholars we have here.

So when you think about St.

Louis, what are your thoughts about it?

Good, bad, right, wrong, and different.

I'm a lifelong resident.

Like I said, I grew up here, born, raised, everything else.

So I got my thoughts, but I'd love to hear y'all thoughts on it.

From the outside, you might think it's bad because what you hear around it, but it's low-key good.

You know, it teach you how to really grind.

It teach you how to really level up and just stay out the way and focus on your dreams and just work hard.

I just say one word, it's misunderstood.

Just misunderstood.

It's a war zone.

You're in survival mode when you're, you know what I'm saying?

You can't just walk out and just do whatever you want whenever you want to do it.

You hear gunshots at night time a lot.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm in North County and I hear them, you know what I'm saying, all the time.

And I just stay in the house.

Our city needs help.

And I think the stats show that I think waking up in my neighborhood isn't bad as, you know, a certain side, like a South side or, you know, a North side neighborhood.

I think St.

Louis builds character in the people that reside here.

When you look at all the bad that's happening, it makes you want to do good.

I agree.

You know, they do say pressure makes diamonds.

Like if there ain't no pressure.

What goal do you all have for yourself?

I want to go to college for out of state and once I'm financially stable, I want to get back to my community to help my mama.

Go to college and actually finish college because in the black community, a lot of people don't finish because of like, they face an adversity.

I want to go to college for nursing.

To break generational curses within my family, for myself, and my siblings that I have.

Think about what it would be like to play ball without having to think about a scholarship.

Like have you even fathomed the thought of playing ball just to play ball?

For the love of the game.

Just for the love of the game.

Yeah.

Right.

Cause y'all are 16, 17, 18, right?

I do want our black kids to be able to experience joy in our activities.

Yeah, I just started doing fashion.

I love basketball.

Like, let's not get that twisted.

I went into refereeing to study the game.

Like, I don't see myself refereeing basketball in the future, but I use it as a tool to understand as the ref.

There's something very therapeutic about running.

When you run it, all you focusing on is your breath.

I love wrestling.

Yeah, I love cooking.

What's your dream?

Play ball.

Play ball.

Be successful.

To reach my end goal and my calling under God.

To have a peaceful life.

Buy my mom a house.

Period.

Period.

Thinking back about school, what is the best part of school?

They just want us to thrive.

It doesn't feel like a high school.

It feels like I'm here and they're pushing me to be the greatest that I can be.

This is not a paid advertisement.

(Laughter) When I say school safety, what does that mean to y'all?

Being able to walk into a building and not have a target on your back.

Like if I can walk into school and not have to worry about getting stole off on, I'm good.

If I can walk into school and I see that they have security teams and they have people put in place to protect me, then I feel good.

For me, being the oldest, it's a lot of me.

So it's like you have expectations that you got to feel.

I want to make sure I'm surrounding myself with people who actually want a success in life, who actually want something in life.

So the thing we've had that's coming through, through every, almost every answer we have, is just community.

Yes.

Community, feeling like home.

That's what the city is.

Yeah.

You know, we, we're, no matter Cardinal Ritter, Lift for Life, Sumner, McClure, wherever, it's still St.

Louis.

Right.

It is.

Hi, my name is Phoenix Isaiah.

Armani Howard.

Madison Outlaw.

I'm Taylor J. Shivers.

My name is Ayanna Wortham.

Jayla Goyne-Sweat.

James Harris.

I'm Jordan Reed.

Go to lift for life academy, I'm a senior.

Going away to college is a big transition for students and their families.

While it's a time for independence, caring for your children never ends, no matter how far they're away.

And there's one organization that's making that job a lot easier.

Starting college can feel like a leap of faith for students and parents.

Feelings of excitement, worry, and loneliness can be a bit overwhelming in this next chapter.

That's where mindyKNOWS steps in.

It's a caregiving service started by St.

Louis native and social worker Mindy Horwitz.

It connects college students far away from home with trusted and local support.

Was there a personal experience that made you realize that this service was needed?

So I am a mom.

I have three children who are now grown.

And my oldest son went to Wash U in St.

Louis.

And when he was my first son and I immediately joined the Facebook group for out of town families, for parents.

And I got on this group and I would see everything that the out of town families needed.

And I realized very quickly that as a local person in a place where many people are from very far away, that there was an opportunity to help.

So that's where the idea was born.

It started out with just Mindy providing this service, and later grew after the need increased, with moms and other parents becoming what she calls "Campus Mindys."

It sort of works.

I'm able to cover a lot of it, but I do have a wonderful team of people that help when need be.

Her team now spans across 10 different universities in the country, connecting students with local parents to help navigate their new environments.

What's really hard for a parent from afar is much easier for me as a local person.

Like we know this town.

You know, I know who good providers are.

I know some pitfalls.

I am sort of well aware of of what our resources are here.

So it's very, very fulfilling to be able to help people.

Handling deliveries, helping students find resources, and making care packages isn't the only thing a local mom can do.

It's also being that emotional and mental support in challenging times.

I had a student in her first year, it was literally in September of her first year of school, she was probably 18 years old.

And she went to the doctor and they sent her to the ER.

And she was in the ER and nobody, her parents weren't able to easily travel here because it was COVID time.

I would go, I would, I would reach out to her every morning and text her and say, "Hey, what are you in the mood for today?"

We didn't know how long she was going to be in the hospital.

But I was able to go in there and just visit with her when her parents couldn't be there.

And it was scary.

I mean, it was a scary time for her.

So we weren't really able to help during a very difficult time in that.

For Mindy, it's not just business.

It's her way of building a bridge between home and independence for young adults and making the mental load of parents a little lighter.

I believe so firmly in what we're doing.

I am hoping that we can have Mindy's everywhere in lots of campuses.

I know how important moms are and I think that if we could get moms in many places that are able to step in when your biological mother or the mother that raised you isn't able to, I hope that we can do that in many spots.

St.

Louis is an entrepreneurial city full of ample resources to help small businesses bloom and grow.

Today we're spending some time at the ArchGrants office introducing you to a women-owned business that is truly revolutionizing the world of breakfast with chickpeas.

♪♪ - I was eating a lot of regular oatmeal, like plain instant oatmeal.

I was in college eating it before class, but when I would eat the oatmeal, I would get hungry and like tired right after I ate it.

And I didn't really know why, 'cause like my mom used to say oatmeal is healthy.

Like, you know, you think oatmeal is really healthy.

So I was eating it and I just wasn't feeling that good until I did some research and realized that oatmeal doesn't have that much protein in it and you need a lot of protein in the morning and I was like how could I make oatmeal better and then I was just like wait what if I replace the oatmeal with the chickpea instead.

And so ChiChi Foods was born.

We now have five flavors we have apple cinnamon which is a classic our best-seller which is maple brown sugar inspired by the maple brown sugar packets I used to eat we have a dark chocolate a new one which is peanut butter chocolate chip which is so insane it tastes so good and then our most popular one is actually plain and it only has one ingredient which is chickpeas I know what you're thinking chickpeas yes the answer is chickpeas the response has been amazing I think we're a totally new product like there's literally no other chickpea oatmeal on the market anywhere which is kind of crazy so people are like very intrigued by it and I think the biggest problem we have is that since people have never heard of it, they're like, it's hard to get them to try it without tasting it first.

So we do me and my co founder Izzy, we do tons of demos and our goal is just get chi chi into the mouths of as many people as possible.

Because then when they try it, then they'll buy it.

But it's just hard to like educate without tasting it.

And it tastes actually very good.

It tastes like when people taste it, they're like, Oh, I can't believe it's chickpeas.

It almost has the texture of like steel cut oats in a way.

But Chiara and Izzy both St.

Louis transplants say living St.

Louis is the reason for ChiChi Foods.

Right now we're in the ArchGrants office in St.

Louis and ArchGrants is this amazing organization that basically helps local startups grow without like taking any equity away from their company.

And we just won this award out of like 20 startups this year.

This money really helps us grow and just like keep getting into more grocery stores, keeps keep selling online and keep innovating new flavors.

These two are grateful for the Lou.

It's ingenuity, education and the community that has supported ChiChi Foods from the very beginning.

Every step of the way, like St.

Louis as a city has, we started this at Wash U and they've given us grants to start the company.

And then like we've just kind of taken baby steps so that we can just keep growing slow and steady.

Climbing to the top to reach their goal.

So what's next for ChiChi Foods?

What's next for us is trying to become a national breakfast brand in every grocery store in America.

Changing the world one chickpea at a time.

I'm Veronica Mohesky and I'm here with Jody Sowell, president of the Missouri Historical Society.

And today we're talking about a St.

Louis woman and her voting rights case that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

That's right.

If St.

Louis could introduce itself, it might say, "I'm the place where women could have gotten to vote 50 years earlier."

That's because on October 15, 1872, Virginia Minor walks up the steps of the old courthouse and says, "I'm here to register to vote."

And they said, "Well, you can't register to vote.

You're a woman."

She says, "Of course I can.

The 14th Amendment says if you're born in the United States, you have all the rights of citizenship.

I was born in the United States.

Surely voting is a right of citizenship."

And you're right.

That case would go all the way from St.

Louis to the Supreme Court, where unfortunately the Supreme Court ruled that voting was not a right of citizenship.

It would take women 50 more years to get that right.

And so even though the case wasn't a success, what can we learn from her?

Yeah, you know, one thing I tell people is Virginia Minor never thought she was going to get to vote that day, right?

This is a smart woman.

She just knew that if you were going to win the war for voting rights, starts by fighting some unwinnable battles, and she was willing to lead that fight.

And Veronica, it breaks my heart because Virginia Minor is a hero of mine.

But anytime I speak to audiences and ask how many people have heard of Virginia Minor, I'll get one, two hands tops.

This should be a hero of every St.

Louisan.

Well, hopefully more people can learn about her from us.

Absolutely.

Thanks, Jody.

Thank you.

And that's Living St.

Louis.

The planetarium will have its grand reopening in the summer of 2026, but you can still come to the Science Center and see all the cool things that they have.

What's your favorite thing to see?

I honestly didn't know that these dinosaurs existed until just now.

Let us know at NinePBS.org/LSL.

I'm Brooke Butler.

Thanks for joining us.

♪♪ - Living St.

Louis is funded in part by the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.