Transforming Disinvestment into Opportunity at R&R Marketplace in North St. Louis County

Deepening commitment to early childhood education and working families.

For nearly two decades, the former Springwood Plaza on West Florissant Avenue in Dellwood sat empty, a symbol of the disinvestment that has defined too much of North St. Louis County for too long. In September 2023, Pastors Ken and Beverly Jenkins and the nonprofit Refuge and Restoration opened R&R Marketplace on that same site: a nearly 90,000-square-foot community economic hub built to give North County residents access to the education, employment, childcare, banking, entrepreneurship support, and healthcare resources that belong in every thriving community.

With support from Serving Our Communities Foundation, R&R Marketplace has served more than 330 clients since opening, doubled that reach across the full Marketplace in 2024, and served 770 individuals through Employ St. Louis, 130 families through Brilliant Angels Academy events and programming, and 310 entrepreneurs through the North County Innovation Center in 2025 alone. In 2026, with continued Serving Our Communities Foundation support, three new Brilliant Angels Academy classrooms will open, deepening the Marketplace’s commitment to early childhood education and working families in North County.

The Springwood Plaza in Dellwood closed its anchor Schnucks grocery store nearly twenty years before anyone came to reopen it. In the years that followed, the building sat vacant on West Florissant Avenue, a corridor that became nationally known in 2014 after the killing of Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson. The emptiness of that plaza was not incidental. It was the physical expression of decades of disinvestment in a community that had been telling anyone who would listen what it needed: access.

Pastors Ken and Beverly Jenkins heard that clearly. They had spent more than two decades building Refuge and Restoration, a nonprofit founded in 1999 with a mission to connect residents with jobs, childcare, workforce development, and financial and healthcare services. For years, they envisioned a “marketplace” ministry: a place that could meet the full scope of a community’s needs under one roof. The building on West Florissant, they believed, could be that place.

It took seven years to make the acquisition and get the deal done. Serving Our Communities Foundation was among the partners whose support helped make it possible, providing funding for acquisition, construction, and working capital that enabled Refuge and Restoration to build and staff the vision it had long been working toward.

R&R Marketplace opened on September 14, 2023. The nearly 90,000-square-foot facility brought together five pillars under one roof: Employ St. Louis, a career training and workforce development program modeled after the internationally recognized Jobs for Life curriculum; the North County Innovation Center, a co-working and office space designed to support Black entrepreneurs and small business owners; Brilliant Angels Academy, a play-based early childhood program serving children and the working parents who depend on quality, affordable childcare; Midwest BankCentre, whose presence in the building is both practical and symbolic, a bank saying plainly that this community is worth investing in; and Assisted Recovery Centers of America, expanding access to addiction treatment services in a community that needs them.

Since opening, the numbers have grown steadily. More than 330 clients were served in the Marketplace’s first months of operation. That number doubled across the full Marketplace in 2024. In 2025, Employ St. Louis served 770 individuals, Brilliant Angels Academy programming reached 130 families, and the North County Innovation Center supported 310 entrepreneurs through its co-working space and entrepreneurship services. Serving Our Communities Foundation’s additional matching funds gift enabled Refuge and Restoration to hire three additional staff members and focus resources on working capital and programming. In 2026, three new Brilliant Angels Academy classrooms will open, expanding early childhood education capacity and creating new pathways for families across North County.

The Marketplace was always intended to be more than a building. It was designed to reframe the story of what North St. Louis County is and what it deserves. The beauty of the facility is intentional. The high-tech finishes, the podcast studio, the thoughtfully designed common spaces are not amenities. They are a statement.

Serving Our Communities Foundation’s investment in R&R Marketplace is an investment in that statement and in the thousands of people who will walk through those doors looking for the access, the opportunity, and the dignity that every community deserves.

To support Refuge and Restoration and R&R Marketplace directly, visit rrnpo.org.