Theresa Bradley

Community Enrichment

Theresa Bradley is the founding director of the nonprofit Community Development Corporation, Communities in Unity, established in 2015, for the creation of initiatives, blueprints and community economic models to benefit disenfranchised communities and youth.

After the tragedy and unrest in Ferguson 2014, she felt the community needed positive initiatives to have hope for a better future. She volunteered her time writing grants and connecting with government and educational institutions to push initiatives forward. The Economic Base Model she created for the community was deemed by the Washington University Business Masters Program “a unique integrated concept” because of its focus on “Circulation of the Dollar,” a mechanism to funnel profits back into communities. She also enlisted the help of Washington University on a feasibility study and market analysis that was released to the Ferguson-Dellwood Business District to help the district establish funding for a community economic hub.

Her establishment of the Ferguson Poetry Club gave youth a space for therapeutic expression of their energies and emotions. Ferguson: Young Voices Speak, a collection of poems, was selected for inclusion in the archives of the Missouri History Museum and Research Center.

She is a visionary whose love for St. Louis compels her to volunteer her time to lay the necessary groundwork for disenfranchised communities to secure funding and implementation of transformative projects.