Lansdowne Up began in 2008 as the East St. Louis Wrestling Club, establishing a children’s wrestling program at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center (JJK) located in the Lansdowne neighborhood of East St. Louis. Beyond the JJK Center was a decaying neighborhood riddled with overgrown properties, abandoned houses, and sparsely populated streets plagued by illegal trash dumping. Even as the JJK Center was a haven of resources and opportunities for children and families, the need for hope clearly continued beyond the campus boundaries.
In 2013, East St. Louis Wrestling Club established the “Lawns For Learning” program designed to strengthen relationships between the teenage wrestlers and their coaches. Lawns For Learning provided opportunities for workforce development as the participants began neighborhood clean-up and restoration by clearing debris and mowing lots. By 2021, their work had grown so vast that Lansdowne UP was established as a not-for-profit separate from East St. Louis Wrestling Club. Lansdowne UP now employs 28 people full-time with a mission to transform Lansdowne into a thriving neighborhood — one person, one property, at a time. Today Lansdowne UP strives to not only make the Lansdowne neighborhood clean and beautiful, but also to provide jobs, work force development, and dignified housing for its employees who call East St. Louis home. Lansdowne Up is committed to returning Lansdowne, East St. Louis to a vibrant safe community with opportunities for all citizens for career education, sustainable employment, and an improved quality of life.
Lansdowne Up is committed to rebuilding the community from within. Partnering with both public and private sector partners Lansdowne UP hires individuals who many would consider to be unemployable. Employment with Lansdowne UP is expected to last between 6 and 24 months. During this time, employees develop work ethic, job-retention skills, and life-coping strategies. Lansdowne Up invests in the holistic approach, teaching not only soft skills, employment skills, and financial literacy, but also sets an example of what it means to be a contributing citizen. Employees work in teams and learn to resolve both personal and job-related conflicts. Lansdowne UP Mentors, commonly called Supervisors, work with employees to help them overcome barriers to employment such as previous incarceration, systemic poverty, low literacy, low conflict-resolution skills, and low self-esteem. Mentors engage employees using faith and work-based learning with a goal of successfully preparing and launching them into self-sufficiency through life-changing careers in lucrative skilled-labor positions.
In 2023, Lansdowne Up engaged in a work-based learning project with St. Clair County Intergovernmental Grants Department Workforce Development Group for their neighborhood revitalization projects. Lansdowne UP hired 9 individuals during the first 6 months of the partnership. In several cases this was the individual’s first employment since being released from incarceration. All were from low-income households, several were single parents, and all were part of an underserved impoverished demographic. Most of the individuals had never held a job for longer than two months. Through its programming, Lansdowne UP was able to provide full-time employment creating work ethic, healthy self-esteem, respect for property and coworkers, skills in landscaping, housing rehabilitation, neighborhood clean-up, and basic construction. The team began construction of a, “first-of-its-kind-in-the-US,” Sun House Passive Solar Greenhouse system for the JJK F.A.N. (Food, Agriculture, and Nutrition Innovation Center). Through the team’s efforts, two houses are currently being rehabbed and the neighborhood continues to experience clean-up with freshly manicured trash-free lots.
Lansdowne UP’s leadership in the community continues drawing many partners to the table. With several revitalization projects underway, Lansdowne Up is a true model of success in community-based transformation.