In May 2025, a major tornado devastated a huge swath of St. Louis, killing five, damaging more than 5,000 structures, and impacting several Centric employees. In the weeks that followed, the St. Louis Business Unit helped the Centric employees and thousands of their neighbors.
On the afternoon of May 16, 2025, St. Louis Business Unit Partner Katie Adastra was away from home for a meeting with Business Unit Lead Paul Holway when her husband texted her.
She had already received texts about a tornado warning, but her husband’s message made the warning shockingly real: “We were just hit by a tornado.”
She rushed home to find her historic St. Louis neighborhood full of downed trees, powerlines and debris. When she finally made her way to her own home, she found all the windows blown out of their early 20th-century sleeping porch, along with two glass doors and multiple windows in her sunroom destroyed.
But many of her neighbors had fared much worse.
“I don’t think anyone on our block has a chimney anymore, and we have several folks who can’t live in their houses. They’ve lost the roofs or their entire third floors,” Adastra said. “The storm took out about 10 of our trees, plus about 70 lining the street.”
Adastra added that they couldn’t get down the street for three days as crews struggled to clean up trees. Natural gas service was cut off. Cell service was cut off. The neighborhood didn’t have power for days.
“It was surreal,” she recalled. “We were unprepared for the emotional effects, and everybody was kind of walking around in a dazed state for many days, almost numb to everything around us.”
Just a few blocks away, thousands more people faced even worse effect. Five people lost their lives, and the storm damaged more than 5,000 structures. Century-old brick homes were leveled, businesses destroyed, and basic services brought to a standstill. Today, months later, those communities are still struggling.
The week after the storm, the St. Louis Business Unit’s “Social People Arranging Recreation and Kindness” (S.P.A.R.K.) committee began discussing how to help Centric victims like Adastra and the larger St. Lous community. In the immediate aftermath, the team sent batches of cookies to affected employees—just to show that their colleagues were thinking of them.
“I got so many cookies!” Adastra said, “And that was great, because I have two hungry teenagers at home! And I even got cookies from an employee who doesn’t even live in St. Louis.”
Then, the SPARK committee organized drives for everything from easy-open or easy-store food items to diapers, shampoo, paper towels, detergent and much more. The resources were delivered to two local nonprofit agencies, The Little Bit Foundation and Operation Food Search, for distribution.
“The BU recently hosted a team lunch to bring employees together before heading out to purchase donation supplies,” said Senior Consultant and SPARK committee lead Jazmin Cook. “We donated and delivered more than $500 worth of items for Operation Food Search that same afternoon. Moments like this show the power of teamwork and our shared commitment to making a difference. I’m thankful to be part of a team that shows up for others.”
But for Adastra and other affected employees, the cookies and the dollars collected for supplies were just part of the overall story.
“I think this experience has been a testament to how we have to take care of one another,” she said. “It was important that the St. Louis BU came together and gave to those local organizations, because then they can get those resources out to the community. My family and neighbors nearby and throughout the storm’s path are so grateful for Centric’s support.”