Malaya Downey grew up in northeast Centralia — the same neighborhood that surrounds Laura Lee Park — and was not allowed to go there as a child. Too much violence, too many drugs. She spent her childhood sitting at the feet of elders who described a Centralia that used to be: thriving, proud, a community with deep roots and old money, and something humming at its center. She built a vivid picture in her mind of what the place had been.

She couldn't wait to leave.

She graduated from Centralia High School in 2015 and told herself she was never coming back. "There's a stigma around coming back home to Centralia," she says now. "If you come back home to Centralia, you're a failure." It was a belief her whole generation carried.

Life had other plans.

At SIU Carbondale, she majored in psychology — not because she knew where it would take her, but because she believed that understanding the human mind would help her in anything. She minored in marketing. Graduated in three years, thanks to dual credit courses completed at CHS. Interned with CenturyLink in Town and Country through a program called Inroads, working on client campaigns, attending a national leadership conference in Washington, D.C. Then graduate school at SIUE — mass communications and marketing, accelerated.

The turning point came in a media campaigns course taught by Dr. Mishra. SIUE sends students into communities, not classrooms. Malaya's project was East St. Louis — building a campaign to amplify community voices and encourage civic participation. She calls it the spark for the powder keg. "I discovered a whole passion for community development," she says. When the project concluded, the professor — who was also the college dean — chose Malaya to present the work to the school leadership.

Then someone in East St. Louis asked her a simple question: "What are you doing for your own community?"

She didn't show it, but she got upset. She was carrying a full credit load, working, and balancing everything. Someone wants more? But that night she didn't sleep. The question kept ringing. By morning, she had a plan.

For her graduate final project, Malaya partnered with a civic club called the United Community Clubhouse in Centralia and began hosting fish fries every Saturday, raising money and giving it directly to anyone doing something positive in the community — no 501(c)(3) required. 

That work caught the attention of Marcus Holland, executive director of the Greater Centralia Chamber of Commerce. He showed up at a fish fry. Six months later, when the assistant director position opened, Malaya got the job.

At the Chamber, she finally saw the other side of the city she'd grown up in — the history, the old money, the resilience. What she calls Centralia's tale of two cities. "It taught me to challenge the narrative," she says, crediting her high school honors history teacher, Ms. Settle, with first giving her that tool. Another voice had planted an earlier seed: a substitute teacher named Ms. Hannah, who told a classroom full of kids who all planned to leave that Centralia would never become great if everybody left. They laughed. Malaya didn't forget.

In 2020, when COVID regulations prevented the city from hosting its traditional Juneteenth celebration at Laura Lee Park, Malaya stepped in. Her grandmother had been the first person to advocate for improvements at that park, and had passed away when Malaya was twenty. "I guess I just continued that legacy for her," she says. Centralia Juneteenth raised a thousand dollars in its first year. By its best year, twenty thousand. Seven years in, the organization — now an official 501(c)(3) — has generated roughly $50,000 for local initiatives, and Laura Lee Park is being reclaimed.

Her work eventually landed on the radar of Damon Harbison, president of SSM Health Illinois. She joined the organization, and SSM's corporate office in St. Louis has since recruited her to focus on digital strategy and online reputation management — harvesting patient experience data from Google reviews and social platforms, elevating what's working, escalating what isn't.

She lives in O'Fallon now. But she keeps coming back.

If she could sit with her younger self, she'd keep it short. "Don't overthink it. Just walk." Her creed, borrowed from Augustine, is Solvitur ambulando — all is solved by walking. Show up. Come from a genuine place. And allow space for a miracle.

She has seen it work.