Ollie Mae Stewart

Ollie Stewart started her amazing journey in community engagement and governmental affairs in 1970 as a management aid trainee with the St Louis Housing Authority. In 1972 she became the Program Director/Supervisor for five (5) sites for the Near Southside Area Older Adult Program. Realizing there was a need for services to the elderly and disabled, in 1975 she founded the Southside Senior Center and in 1992 the Southside Wellness Center. Both of these institutions provide a wide variety of community services for the senior citizens and adults with disabilities.

As Executive Director of the Southside Wellness Center in St Louis, Missouri, Ollie Stewart has dedicated her career to ministering and serving as an advocate for the many issues facing the largely powerless, but growing elderly population in the United States. Stewart is widely known and often recognized as an innovator and as a positive force with institutional changes on behalf of senior citizens at the local, state, and national levels. Stewart's work and dedication has made her an often sought-after advisor and board member of a number of elderly advocacy organizations and has led her to chair several organizations and coalitions. Her wisdom and knowledge enabled her to serve as a host of a number of training seminars and workshops addressing issues impacting the elderly and has led her to be chosen as the delegate to multiple White House Conferences. For more than 45 years, Stewart has amassed a level of expertise and dedication to the causes and concerns of Senior Citizens that has made her, quite humbly, a force with which to be reckoned.