For the fourth year in a row, Better Family Life, Inc. is teaming up with St. Louis Community College to offer St. Louisans with misdemeanor warrants an opportunity to move past these issues through the 2014 St. Louis Metropolitan Area Amnesty Project.
The program will be conducted over three days at three STLCC campuses from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The program will be held Saturday, Aug. 2, in the Student Center at the Meramec campus, 11333 Big Bend Road; Wednesday, Aug. 6, in the gymnasium at the Florissant Valley campus, 3400 Pershall Road; and Saturday, Aug. 9, in the in the Mildred E. Bastian Center for the Performing Arts at the Forest Park campus, 5600 Oakland Ave.
Citizens will be assessed a $10 processing fee to cover all warrant vouchers. STLCC representatives also will be on hand to discuss available educational opportunities.
“We’re very excited about this program. Everyone deserves a second chance,” said St. Ann Police Chief Aaron Jimenez, who also represents the North County Police Chiefs Association.
The Amnesty Project was established in 2002 as a one-day event to help citizens clear their records of outstanding traffic-related warrants. The program has expanded to include all misdemeanor warrants with more than 33 city and county municipalities.
In 2013, 65 municipalities from throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area participated. Currently, plans are underway to expand the model to Kansas City, Memphis, Detroit and Atlanta.
The Amnesty Project provides citizens the chance to build more productive futures for themselves and their families by resolving situations that may be preventing them from getting or keeping a job, signing a residential lease, or signing a child up for day care.
The Amnesty Project is part of BFL’s annual week-long Family Week, with the theme “Back to the Basics – Faith, Family and Neighborhood.”
“We believe that the family is the single most important unit that makes up society, and we are dedicated to finding internal solutions to the ills, to the obstacles and conditions that plague our neighborhoods,” said James Clark, Better Family Life’s vice president of community outreach.
“We are dedicated to changing families through empowering individuals.”
Clark estimated that over 17,000 citizens will participate in this years’ project, generating an economic impact of close to $3 million.
For more information, visit www.betterfamilylife.org or call 314-381-8200.
