Brightside St. Louis: Centering Community in St. Louis Cleanup and Beautification Efforts

By Sophia Black, Washington University Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement 2025 St. Louis Fellow

Brightside St. Louis is a leading organization in the City of St. Louis with a focus on neighborhood cleanup and creating more environmentally stable areas throughout the city. Originally named Operation Brightside, Brightside began, with the major undertaking being organized by Mayor Vince Schoemehl’s first administration. This operation was in response to a survey in which St. Louis residents believed that the city’s number one problem was it being dirty. 

A dirty city is not good for resident’s morale, especially when there are so many things to be proud of in the St. Louis community. In 1982, Mayor Schoemehl and St. Louis-Globe Democrat chairman, G. Bauman sought to address the problem in a major way – organize to clean an entire city. The operation started by encouraging volunteers to sign up 10 of their neighbors to volunteer, with those neighbors needing to sign up 10 more and so on, leading to a domino effect for volunteer outreach. All in all, the operation had more than 80,000 volunteers cleaning and greening the city, leading to a huge difference in the look of the city that was spurred by a collective effort by residents to better their community. 

The initial beginnings of Brightside show the dedication and collective commitment that a city needs to take care of itself and each other, and the efforts that Brightside has continued to do since its inception exemplify this. With more than 40 years of operation under its belt, Brightside has been leading the charge for greener and cleaner neighborhoods for all to be proud of.

“We all have a shared goal of living in a clean and safe environment,” Mary Lou Green, Executive Director at Brightside said. “We all have a shared neighborhood, we all live here, so we should all take care of our community.”

Brightside has many programs, including their Demonstration Garden– a garden that community members can come to learn about native plants, Neighbors Neighborscaping – a resident-led sustainable landscaping program, their Graffiti Eradication program – a program that relies on residents reporting of graffiti, and many other programs.

While each program is unique, their Graffiti Eradication program utilizes Brightside’s unique situation to better the St. Louis community, as Brightside is both a not-for-profit organization, and a small branch of the City of St. Louis Parks, Recreation, and Forestry department.

Photo of the Demonstration Garden, located at Brightside’s main office.

Their Graffiti Eradication program has the mission to eradicate graffiti across the city, as it tends to be an eyesore for the community and negatively affects residents who see it every day. Five days a week, weather-permitting, the Brightside graffiti eradication team goes out to tackle different sites that have been reported to them by community members. 

The process of graffiti removal is simple, residents can report graffiti they see throughout the city to the Citizens’ Service Bureau (CSB) by phone, X/Twitter, or by submitting the information on the City’s website. Then, Brightside gets the service request and contacts the owner of the residence if the site is privately owned informing them about the situation. The owner then has five days to respond to their request, if there is no response, a City ordinance allows Brightside to continue with the removal. Then their graffiti eradication team moves to remove the graffiti. The team has two removal methods:
Painting over graffiti that has been found on already painted surfaces
Powerwashing graffiti from unpainted brick or concrete surfaces

Photo of graffiti being painted over.

Photo of graffiti being powerwashed from brick.

With either one of their removal processes, there is a significant difference made in the look of the sites after Brightside has visited them, creating a community that residents can be proud to call home. Overall, Brightside typically removes graffiti from around 65,000 square feet of surfaces quarterly, making that around 260,000 square feet of graffiti removed annually from vandalized sites. 

Photo of Brightside’s graffiti eradication team after a portion of graffiti from a vacant building was removed.

Brightside’s Graffiti Eradication program is made possible through community involvement– community members must submit a service request for them to begin to tackle the problem, showing how dedicated Brightside is to listening to community needs. The program is also made possible in part by funding from the Community Development Administration (CDA), ensuring the St. Louis community continues to be community focused.

“CDA is proud to be partnered with Brightside in their efforts to eliminate graffiti from our city,” Nahuel Fefer, executive director of CDA said. “We all benefit from a cleaner and safer St. Louis, and that’s what Brightside aims to do.”

Building community continues to be a huge piece of Brightside’s efforts. Each year, about 6,000 volunteers help Brightside achieve its mission of improving the quality of life for the St. Louis community. Each program is representative of the community being at the center of their work, and their volunteer efforts are indicative of this. 

Throughout its years of operation, Brightside has held onto the belief that city cleanup and beautification is an ongoing process. There is no future that exists that does not require city cleanup, and Brightside plans to still be leading the charge. 

“We want to continue to do our part in making people feel proud to be in their communities,” Green said. “We will continue to support neighbors and community members in their efforts to create a more beautiful St. Louis.”

Photo of the back of their Cornelsen Conservation Center sign that reads “Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly, “one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”– Hans Christian Andersen