Writen by Joyee Clayton, NSEC Board Member
In the early days of St.Louis, the south part of the city was a mixture of industrial plants and residential areas. Pestalozzi Street, located in the midst, was a bustling commercial thoroughfare. At 2649, a small building housed an automobile repair shop, which operated for many years in the early days of the automobile. Times changed and eventually the repair shop closed and was put up for sale.
After remaining vacant for some time, the building was purchased by Environmental Operation, which remodeled the building to include the present office space. The organization grew and evidently needed more space; hence the building was, once again, on the market. It was providential that at that time, Joint Neighborhood Ministries (JNM) was looking for space in which to conduct their employment-training program, Human Energies. Originally, in the development of HEI, Bill McRoberts, director of NSEC, had been very helpful and served as a mentor to the then director of HEI. Knowing that NSEC was operating in very limited space in Kingdom House, the board of HEI made the decision to offer NSEC ownership of their building in which to conduct the NSEC employment- training program.
Early in the year 2000, Near Southside Employment Coalition officially moved their program to 2649 Pestalozzi St. Louis where they continue to serve the employment and job training needs of the local residents.
Addendum:
Rebuilding Together-St. Louis selected NSEC in March of 2009, to receive $5.000 for building renovations. Rebuilding Together-St.Louis and Boeing volunteers, made improvements on the building façade and interior. These improvements included the construction of two (2) rooms and storage space in the warehouse area of the building. It had always been a goal of NSEC to expand its space, by renovating the warehouse. With this now completed, NSEC plans to expand its computer lab to that area, and hold job skills trainings and meeting there.
(Writen by Ohala Ward, NSEC Executive Director)
