In my comings and goings around Clayton, I’ve noticed the many ways one corporation has made its presence known—big time. It’s Centene. I admit to only loosely following any controversy around the company’s development of downtown Clayton. But the more I roam, the more I notice amenities it has helped provide. There’s the refurbished track at Gay Field—oops, I mean Centene Stadium at Gay Field. Its eight lanes have been considerably upgraded with a soft, brightly painted surface. And the football field—no longer balding patches of grass—is an eternally green SporTurf. Then there’s Clayton High School’s beautified entrance, several years ago renamed The Centene Centennial Plaza. These are not big things, but investing in a community’s youth is the sweet spot.
So it’s no surprise that these—and several other ‘sponsorships’—have weighted public opinion (mine, at least) in the favor of our highly visible corporate neighbor. Some may say the company’s approach is heavy handed, but it makes sense for a generous corporate donor’s name to appear on every ball field it pays for and every event it underwrites. That’s how these things work: the community gets amenities, the company gets recognition. And while I have heard derisive comments about Centene’s upcoming ‘takeover’ of several blocks at the Hanley-Forsyth intersection, I can’t help but measure that against the eyesore those blocks—for decades dubbed the Clayton hole—used to be.
Walking past the public patio at Brentwood and Bonhomme, I noticed that the striking sculpture there (Molecular Bloom with Single Flower by James Surls) was provided to us courtesy of Centene Charitable Foundation. And I have it on good authority that the state-of-the-art workout equipment enjoyed by the Clayton police and fire departments was also a gift from—you guessed it. On a broader scale, there’s the zoo’s new Grizzly Ridge, opened last week with a ‘leadership gift’ from Centene Charitable Foundation, not to mention the venerable Saint Louis Art Fair, this year ‘presented by Centene’— which has made a multiyear commitment to the event.
I know little about corporate (and political) wheelings and dealings, but I do know that corporations don’t have to be good neighbors; they choose to be. Sure, it’s smart business for them to make very public gifts; it buys them something that has no price tag. But our community is still the beneficiary of all this largesse. Just like the neighbors on our street can either keep to themselves, be downright unlikeable or bring over cookies every week, so can corporate neighbors. Look