Across the St. Louis metro, there are pockets known as food deserts, where many families lack easy access to fresh, healthy food.

Wednesday morning, Olympic gold medalist and hometown hero Jackie Joyner-Kersee is working to change that, planting new seeds of opportunity in East St. Louis.

Joyner-Kersee is opening a new innovation center on her foundation’s 100-acre campus, a space leaders say is about more than growing vegetables, it’s about growing futures.

First Alert 4’s Justin Andrews was given an inside look ahead of Wednesday morning’s grand opening.

Known to students as “Miss Jackie,” Joyner-Kersee says her goal is to give young people access, exposure and opportunity, while encouraging them to return and reinvest in their community.

She says students are encouraged to earn degrees or trade skills and bring that knowledge back home.

“This isn’t just a place to learn how to grow food,” Joyner-Kersee said. “It’s a place designed to help East St. Louis grow itself.”

Inside the facility, students rotate through classrooms, commercial kitchens and agriculture and STEM labs designed to open new career pathways. A maker space also allows students to explore entrepreneurship, design and creativity.

Joyner-Kersee says the goal is to introduce students early to careers in agriculture, engineering and food science while showing how those skills connect in everyday life.

“We talk about the food aspect of it, but our young people want to design, make their own T-shirts, do their own hair, all of that,” she said.

Students in the program say the center is already making a difference.

“Miss Jackie is really helping our generation out because she is keeping some kids who don’t know what to do with their life … and keeping them busy,” one student said.

Another added, “You don’t see nobody else in this city doing that or really helping all these people who really need help. So Miss Jackie is doing a lot of good for us.”

A passive solar greenhouse near the center uses sunlight to regulate growing temperatures year-round. Inside, students are growing cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes and basil, with produce that can be donated, sold at events or taken home.

The center is a partnership between the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation, Landsdowne UP, the University of Illinois Extension and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, connecting education with workforce development in agriculture, science and engineering.

“We are now a campus that we’re growing,” Joyner-Kersee said. “Not only are we growing facility-wise, but we’re growing young people — planting one seed at a time, nurturing them and allowing them to blossom and come back and pour into this community.”

JJK Foundation leaders say the goal is to create a space where young people can see what’s possible and build their futures close to home.

“This center is about access, opportunity and belief,” the foundation said. “We are creating a space where young people can see what’s possible and begin to build a future for themselves right here in their community.”

For Joyner-Kersee, the mission remains rooted in growth — not just in the greenhouse, but in the next generation.