Lisa LaGrone

Lisa LaGrone, Executive Director of the St. Louis-based nonprofit, Safe Streets Safe Neighborhoods, is an esteemed community leader and violence prevention specialist. Lisa’s extensive expertise in first response victim support, crisis intervention, conflict resolution, de-escalation services, and high-risk neighborhood engagement has long been admired by partners in this work and replicated by similar organizations in other cities.

Formerly, as an Outreach Supervisor for St. Louis Safe Futures, Lisa supervised gang outreach staff and recruited at-risk and gang-involved youth for educational and job training programs. Later, Lisa served as Project Haki Coordinator for the Organization for Black Struggle where she led youth-centered engagement programs with at-risk children and teens and implemented broad crisis intervention services. Both of these roles allowed Lisa to work closely with judges and prosecutors while also building and maintaining a confidential database of victims and offenders.

In 2023, after losing two grandsons to gun violence and recognizing the impact of her own personal losses in St. Louis, Lisa founded Safe Streets Safe Neighborhoods where she has continued to build upon the skills she developed in her earlier community-facing roles. As a collaborative partner organization within the St. Louis Mental Health Board’s Violence Prevention Commission’s programs, Lisa and her staff of devoted outreach intervention specialists seek to preemptively respond with urgency and compassion to emerging volatile challenges within the region. Time and time again, Safe Streets Safe Neighborhoods has been recognized for its demonstrated excellence in street outreach, team leadership and development, strong verbal communication, and hospital-based violence prevention liaison work.

For her unwavering commitment to violence prevention and community well-being, Lisa has received numerous awards including two Humanitarian Awards from Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis and the Staying Power Award from Mission St. Louis. Lisa has also been honored twice by Cities United, for which she has traveled to Washington, DC to receive the honor at The White House.

Lisa’s work is an integral part of our region’s decline in incidents of community violence. With Safe Streets Safe Neighborhoods and her team, she has solidified her reputation as a leading figure in creating positive change in St. Louis and beyond.