What's Right with the Region

Thursday, May 15, 2025
5:00-6:30 p.m.  Networking Reception
6:30-8:00 p.m. Awards Celebration
Touhill Performing Arts Center at the University of Missouri-St. Louis

During this event, we will recognize our 2025 What's Right with the Region honorees, including our FOCUS Leadership Award and Alumni Award recipients. With

As a nonprofit, this event represents FOCUS' most important fundraising event of the year. Your ticket purchase supports our mission to provide diverse leaders with the civic awareness and powerful connections needed to be collaborative changemakers who advance a thriving region for all.

Pricing (through March 31)

FOCUS members - $65
Nonmembers - $75

Members must log-in to receive discounted pricing. Join/renew now to save! 

Demonstrating Innovative Solutions

Honorees have demonstrated innovation and vision in making the St. Louis region a better place to live, work or visit.
The Bullet Related Injury Clinic (BRIC)
Peter & Paul Community Services
Propel Kitchens
Forest ReLeaf of Missouri's Treesilience

Improving Equity and Inclusion

Honorees have shown a commitment to promoting diversity, access, inclusion and opportunity for all.
Bridge 2 Hope Parent Institute
Immigrant Home English Learning Program
Per Scholas St. Louis
The Village

Promoting Community Health and Well-being

Honorees are working to improve the collective health and wellness of our region’s residents, as well as addressing the social determinants of health.
Affinia Healthcare
Camp Rainbow Foundation
Girls in the Know
Vitendo 4 Africa

Emerging Initiatives

Honorees are promising new businesses, organizations or initiatives that are already serving as catalysts for change.
Educators for Gun Safety, an initiative of Confluence Academies
Empower, a program of WashU Continuing & Professional Studies
Local Food Purchase Assistance Partnership
Save Lives Now!

Community Changemakers

Honorees are individuals leading and inspiring change in their organizations, their community and/or our region for the benefit of all.
Pastor Andre Alexander
Katie Rodriguez Banister
Kevin Fitzgerald
Riz Khan

Susan Trautman, CEO of Great Rivers Greenway, will be honored with the 2025 FOCUS Leadership Award at this year's What's Right with the Region Awards Celebration.

This prestigious award, chosen by the FOCUS Board of Directors, is given annually to individuals who demonstrate committed leadership, generate a meaningful impact in the community, and encourage strong community engagement in others.

During her tenure, working with more than 200 partners, Great Rivers Greenway has doubled their number of miles of greenway trail (from 68 to 135) as well as added several destination park projects. Trautman was a key champion in the six-agency public-private partnership to plan and implement the CityArchRiver project, reimagining of the Gateway Arch National Park and surrounding areas. She led the organization through tremendous growth, including securing $110 million to date from federal or state grants and developing a 501(c)3 nonprofit Foundation to solicit and steward private donations to the same cause, collecting more than $50 million to date, ensuring that residents’ tax contributions are used to their maximum potential. Trautman will be retiring from her role, which she has held since 2010, in May 2025.

Leon Sharpe, Founder & Principal of The Praxis Group, will be honored with the 2025 FOCUS Legacy Alumni Award at this year's What's Right with the Region Awards Celebration.

Leon is a 2000 graduate of Leadership St. Louis and a long-time consultant and co-facilitator for the program.

As a consultant, Leon has successfully designed and implemented training, development, and systemic change initiatives for a vast array of organizations, specializing in building organizational capacity, coaching effective leaders, training high-performance teams, leveraging workforce diversity, and managing institutional transformation. As a former adjunct professor in the School of Communications at Webster University, he taught courses that critically examined the influence of film and other media in upholding patterns of systemic power and inequity.

What’s Right with the Region has a tremendous impact on FOCUS St. Louis and on the organizations and people we honor each year, and meaningful partnerships make all the difference.

A What's Right with the Region sponsorship is a unique opportunity to build stronger community ties, promote your business, and be intimately associated with one of the most well-known civic leadership organizations in the country.

For more information on sponsorships and benefits, please contact Michelle Stevens, Director of Development.

Over the past 27 years, FOCUS has had the privilege of celebrating the accomplishments of more than 550 honorees.