Former Marquette teacher shares passion for community service with German students

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” –  Eleanor Roosevelt. Kim Hotze has long lived by that saying. But it took a couple decades or so for long-time Chesterfield resident to realize her greatest passions and to share them with the world.

German exchange students help build beds for Sleep in Heavenly Peace. (Kim Hotze photo)

Best known for being the Marquette High German teacher for 30 years, Hotze was also the school’s community service instructor for 10 of those years. That expertise helped her when she hosted Youth For Understanding (YFU) for a special two-week project, Sept. 29 through Oct. 13. 

YFU is best known for facilitating year-long study abroad programs for American and international students, predominately for high school students. However, the recent two-week experience was focused on service learning for 15 students, ages 15-17, from several small villages in the state of Thuringia. The students were accompanied by two adults, who served as chaperones.

Hotze noted that Germany has an abundance of social programs whereas Americans depend on a lot of social organizations and volunteers.  

“What’s unique about this trip is that students in Germany have a two-week fall break. That’s when they arrived,” Hotze said. “They all interviewed and came over on German scholarships.”

Hotze added that this was the first time a YFU service-learning sabbatical was conducted in St. Louis. She credited West County resident Steven Rutherford with getting it started and hiring her. 

Hotze was a short-term hire to coordinate the event, find host families and set up a variety of community service projects. She was given a budget and worked with students on English lessons, fed them lunch every day and arranged transportation.

“Sometimes they hire someone to do the English class teaching and someone else for the other job details,” Hotze explained. “I told them I’d rather do both because I needed to know where they were in English. I also gave them a variety of activities to see and learn because the goal is for kids to go back to Germany and know that, even as teenagers, they can promote volunteerism at their school and do things in their community to help each other.”

Before the trip, Hotze joined Rutherford in recruiting local families from within his network. Three families hosted two students each for the two-week program. They were recruited early enough so that the German students could connect with their host families well before arrival.

Among the places Hotze lined up for service work was Five Acres Animal Shelter in St. Charles, where the students made items for the animals, such as snuffle mats and chew toys. 

The students also conducted a cleanup effort at Johnson Shut-ins and Elephant Rocks state parks.  

And for two days, the students worked with the Youth Volunteer Corps organization at Arlington United Methodist Church in Bridgeton. As part of a larger outreach project for Sleep in Heavenly Peace, they built beds for kids. In two days they built 24 beds.

“That was an amazing thing,” Hotze said. 

While she is grateful for all of the service learning projects, Hotze insisted on adding special thanks for the Schnucks at Clarkson and Clayton roads. Not only did the market act as home base for most of the YFU projects, the store also let the students its second-floor mezzanine free of charge as community space. 

All involved deemed the sabbatical a success that, if the funding can be secured, is likely to be repeated next fall. Until then, Hotze has travel plans of her own. 

“I’ve already traveled a bunch, but want to do more,” she said. “Three of my four kids live way out of town. In September, I rented a car and went to Montana by myself for two weeks and just explored all around without any plans. There’s so much out there and I love experiencing everything in life. I had always been that way, but my studies in Denmark really brought that back out in me. I love travel, cultures, languages and exploring the world because it really wets my whistle!”

From playing the blues to ceramics, How Jeremy Segel-Moss found harmony in handmade pottery

 (Although edited by length a decent amount due to all the international stories from the month-long Israel war with Hamas, I was thrilled to see my first actual article posted yesterday in the St. Louis Jewish Light's online site.)

(Jeffry Greenberg photo)

Cherokee Street Ceramics is a home-based business that offers handmade pottery stamped on the bottom with the initials of JSM.

The initials belong to Jeremy Segel-Moss, who after decades as a St. Louis-based blues musician, made the full-time transition to pottery work over the last few years.

Segel-Moss, 47, who grew up in University City and was part of the first bar mitzvah class at Central Reform Congregation, explained that after playing for more than 20 years as part of the Bottoms Up Blues Gang, he began to burn out and felt like he was mostly playing for the money.

“Now my income is in ceramics,” he said. “Over the last four years, I’ve yet to catch up. I have hundreds of pieces and hundreds of orders.”

                                                         (Jeffry Greenberg photo)

Although he does sell his work at the Tower Grove Farmer’s Market, Segel-Moss said markets don’t account for the bulk of his sales. Several high-end St. Louis restaurants, including Akar, Sado and Indo, use his ceramic tableware and he also crafts full sets of dishes for private clients. He makes vases and succulent planters for Flowers and Weeds, and cups with an “STL” insignia for STL Style; both businesses are located on Cherokee Street near his home and studio. In addition, his work is featured at Union Studio, with locations in Webster Groves and the Grove neighborhood, as well as Maven Bath and Candle Company in Maplewood.

And in case you were wondering, he can craft special pieces for weddings, anniversaries and b’nai mitzvahs.

Segel-Moss learned about ceramics as a kid from his mother, Andrea “Andie” Segel-Moss, a first-grade teacher who was an amateur potter and exposed him to ceramics classes at Craft Alliance.

His education was furthered during college at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. He created a ceramics curriculum complete with reading materials with the help of an instructor who had a small studio there.

Segel-Moss credits Krueger Pottery Supply in Brentwood as being essential to his current business. He said few cities have a supplier of their ilk, and ordering items online would be cost prohibitive with shipping fees.

(Jeffry Greenberg photo)

“For the most part, I work ceramics in solitude. So, it’s the opposite of live music,” he said. “When I play with musicians, there’s collaboration, compromise and cooperation that doesn’t exist in a solitary artist’s life with no one else in the room all day every day. I have to create, find my own boundaries and push myself in different ways.”

Segel-Moss first learned about blues music through the guitar playing of his dad, Bob Moss, and their many concert trips.  That led to his own blues radio show during college.  “Once I heard blues, it touched me when I was a teenager and it stuck with me all the way through,” he said.

About 10 years ago, he got involved with the St. Louis Blues Society, which he ran for about eight years.  It put out six CDs and held educational events. During its heyday, he also helped plan the Big Muddy Blues Festival, recalling how one year it featured 70 bands on six stages.

Three years ago, Segel-Moss married his longtime partner, Leslie Sanazaro, who also was a performing musician. Today, she runs Group Piano St. Louis in Clifton Heights.

“We’re evolving, but we’ll come back to (playing) music at some point,” he said.  “Right now, we have this opportunity to do other things that we’re really enjoying.”

                                                     (Jeffry Greenberg photo)

One thing is extremely obvious: Segel-Moss thoroughly enjoys talking about, and making comparisons between, his two major passions.

“Selling ceramics is the same as selling music,” he said. “How the art is created and presented is different.  But the artistic hustle to make a living playing music is the same. You create something to share and hopefully make others’ days better whether it’s a song or a cup.  Then you find a way to make a living out of it.

“With music, it’s performing and selling CDs or T-shirts.  The biggest difference with ceramics is the performance is never seen. I mix it up and bring it to market like the CD part of music as opposed to actually performing music at the markets.  I used to perform music at the markets. Now I have a table there.”