Elaine Cha

A decade before being named the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award winner for Best Chef: Midwest, Gerard Craft had two experiences at his first St. Louis restaurant that help explain why he now speaks so openly about mental health in the restaurant industry: He came close to collapsing in the kitchen. That perspective is now shaping a public conversation Craft is helping to lead in St. Louis.

When an EF-3 tornado tore through parts of north St. Louis in May last year, trauma surgeon LJ Punch knew that people displaced by the storm would need food, housing help, and physical and mental health care immediately. He quickly connected with others who saw the same needs and had the resources to meet them. That project became 314 Oasis. Today — just a few weeks shy of a year since that destructive storm — the mobile response hub is reaching farther, and deeper, to support ongoing recovery.

When St. Louisan Kay Wells moved back to her hometown from California, she was quickly bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. "I was outside gardening with shorts and T-shirt on, and I forgot that we had mosquitoes in St Louis," she said. "It was definitely a pain point." But the pain brought inspiration. "I wanted to have an easier way for myself to keep my garden alive, to keep my indoor plants alive," she recalled.