Over the next few months, we’ll be recognizing each awardee of our new Spark Prize with a feature article.
The Spark Prize is a $200,000 award for individuals with outstanding vision, commitment, and promise to improve health and well-being in Missouri. The award is an investment in future impact, giving recipients the freedom to use the funding in whatever way best supports them.
Evonnia Woods
“You can’t do it alone. Squash the ego. Make room for others. Whatever your skill set is, writing, speaking, art, tech, there’s space for you in the movement. And we need you.”
That’s how Evonnia Woods describes her approach to leadership, and it shows in everything she does. Based in Columbia, Missouri, Evonnia is a lifelong movement builder who brings together education, research, organizing, and unapologetic joy to dismantle systems of injustice and reimagine what’s possible.
Through her work convening Mid-MO Repro (Mid-Missouri’s Reproductive Justice Coalition), cohosting a feminist community radio show, and developing a new movement-building organization, Evonnia is creating the connective tissue between people, ideas, and actions in central Missouri and beyond.
Rooted in Organizing & Research
Evonnia’s approach combines academic knowledge and community organizing experience. While researching social inequalities and movements, she was also actively organizing around economic, racial, environmental, and reproductive justice issues.
“My heart and soul are in Mid-Missouri,” she says. “There’s a myth that no one’s doing this work here. But that’s not true—we’re doing a lot, and we’re doing it together.”
She moved to Columbia to pursue a PhD and quickly immersed herself in community organizing, initially joining a now-defunct economic justice grassroots organization. When that group collapsed, Evonnia and her peers were left reeling. But rather than give up, she stepped into the gap.
“I realized the work still had to happen. Even if the money wasn’t there, the need was.”
Coalition, Creativity, and Care
Today, Evonnia wears many hats. She co-founded Mid-MO Repro to address reproductive justice at a grassroots level, particularly maternal health, abortion access, and racial health disparities. She publishes a monthly “Take Action” newsletter spotlighting local organizing efforts. And she cohosts Women’s Issues, Women’s Voices, a long-running radio show on Columbia, MO-based KOPN that amplifies voices from across the feminist and social justice landscape.
“People think organizing just means protests,” she says. “But it can look like research, art, newsletters, radio, mentoring. Whatever your talents are, there’s space for them in the movement.”
She’s now laying the foundation for a new movement-building organization rooted in Missouri but scalable beyond it. Her goal is to bring together a diverse range of professionals and community leaders to build sustainable power.
A Vision for Missouri
Evonnia is proud of what Missouri organizers have accomplished in a tough political climate.
“We’re in a deeply red state with a supermajority, but the way we’ve organized here? I didn’t see that in any other state in the Midwest. Missouri has something powerful—and it needs to be uplifted.”
Her vision is one where rural and urban communities unite, where leadership is intergenerational, and where people with all kinds of skills feel empowered to step into the work.
On Winning the Spark Prize
Just being nominated for the Spark Prize was surreal, Evonnia says. “In this work, you often don’t feel like you’re doing enough. So being seen in this way? It’s validating. It’s energizing.”
She doesn’t take the responsibility lightly. “It’s not just about doing something with the money—it’s about building something that bears fruit.” She envisions using the Spark Prize to help formally launch her new organization, support others doing unpaid justice work, and free herself up to focus fully on making a long-term impact.“I want to treat myself a little, sure. But mostly I want to invest in what’s coming next, in other people, and in our collective future.”
