Maxine Clark

Maxine Clark was born Maxine Kasselman in Coral Gables, Florida, on 6 March 1949. She told the St. Louis Jewish Light about the tzedakah box of her childhood — her father emptied his pockets into it every night, and she would not go to sleep until she heard the coins rattle — and in 2023 she headlined the first Staenberg Speaker Series for young Jewish professionals in St. Louis. After a career at May Department Stores she founded Build-A-Bear Workshop in 1997 on a single idea a ten-year-old had given her: that a child would rather make the toy than buy it. The chain grew to hundreds of stores worldwide, where children choose, stuff, stitch and name the animal themselves. She now runs the Clark-Fox Family Foundation and the Delmar DivINe, a former hospital rebuilt as housing and offices for non-profits.