Photo: Michael B. Thomas
In fall 2023, pastors Ken and Beverly Jenkins turned a vacant strip mall in the mostly Black working class community of Dellwood, Missouri, into a $20 million, nearly 90,000-square-foot development called R&R Marketplace that has changed the community narrative. The Jenkinses, pastors of a nondenominational church called Refuge and Restoration, have known all along that theirs is not the community people saw during the protests after Michael Brown was shot by a police officer in 2014. “When [supporters] heard our solution, they understood the solution is not coming from outside entities,” said Beverly. Five pillars support the project’s structure: early childhood education; workforce development; small business development; banking; and the multiplex that includes the church and resources such as a theater, a venue space and a commercial demonstration kitchen.
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