The Missouri Workers’ Center (MWC) is a grassroots organization of low‑wage workers—Black, white and brown, urban and rural—standing together across the state to fight racism and win economic justice. MWC believes that workers must organize their strength in numbers at their jobs and in the halls of government to have the power to make decisions about the things that affect their lives. Its programs combine direct organizing and coalition building with strategic campaign planning and narrative development.

The center’s communications and organizing teams work directly with low‑wage workers to develop their storytelling, public speaking and media skills, shifting harmful narratives to ones that promote a family‑sustaining economy for all workers. In collaboration with IRIS, MWC will hire an embedded artist to train workers how to write evocative personal essays about their experiences and the power of worker organizing. These essays will form the basis of a new blog on the MWC website and will explore different forms of creative expression to increase the impact of workers’ stories. The project will result in five to ten blog posts written in collaboration with participants after a statewide convening dedicated to writing.