DES MOINES, Iowa — Drake graduate students are working with a nonprofit called the 6th Avenue Corridor to improve its identity. 

Students from various backgrounds who work in different industries have already contributed.

The district of the same name as the nonprofit was once home to a bustling hub of Black business owners during the segregation era.

“You had Fort Des Moines and Black residents, families, vets could not live there, and so that’s why they were at Center Street in the first place,” Jasmine Brooks said.

Brooks is in charge of the nonprofit working to revitalize the historic neighborhood. She is the organization’s only paid employee.

Thanks to a partnership with the Drake Master of Science in Leadership program, she has some much-needed help.

“We’re trying to create leaders that can navigate complexity, that can develop inclusive teams and can really drive meaningful change,” Molly Shepard, co-director of the leadership program, said.

Shepard’s graduate students were split into two groups last spring. The first identified the nonprofit’s goals while the second figured out the community’s needs.

“There’s been so much transition over the last 5-10 years here,” Brooks said. “Making sure our residents are happy with those changes, and they are understanding those changes, especially in the language that they speak, was a really big thing.”

The project will pick back up in the spring semester with two new groups of students. One will identify additional objectives for the nonprofit and the other will collaborate with other organizations.

“They’re going to work directly with community organizations to kind of come up with what’s next, what do we need to address moving forward,” Shepard said.

Twelve Drake graduate students will be working on the capstone next spring. The hope is that it will continue after that semester and keep building off the previous year’s work.