Nonprofit helped 28 new clients in Freeport in 2020
Todd McKenna
Special to The Journal-Standard
FREEPORT Often people find themselves in situations that require legal assistance, but attorney fees can be expensive and so they feel helpless to do anything.
Prairie State Legal Services aims to do something to help. For more than 40 years locally, attorneys associated with the nonprofit agency have been providing free legal help to those who qualify. We handle various legal issues but criminal defense is something we don t do, said Kira Devin, staff attorney in the Rockford office. We mostly do civil cases such as to help them not get evicted and victims of fraud and others.
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Annie Malone
Believed to be the first Black female millionaire, Annie Turnbo Malone was born in Metropolis in 1869 and came to live with an older sister in Peoria when she was orphaned. She attended Peoria Central High School, where her picture still hangs in honor of her status as a special alumnus, according to The Peorian.
With a talent for chemistry, Malone set about developing hair products for women of color, which she marketed to great success.
In the early 1900s Malone started a hair and beauty school in St. Louis, which was one of the first colleges for Black women. Called Poro College after a West African word meaning ‘physical and spiritual growth,’ the school employed hundreds of Black women and became a social center for the community.
Kewanee residents offered second chance to expunge criminal records
Susan DeVilder
The Star Courier
Mistakes made in the past can haunt people in the future, and a local legal service is offering help for residents whose past criminal record no longer reflects their current life.
“We have worked with clients who maybe have made a mistake when they were younger and are now ready to move past that,” said Kevin Hempy, an equal justice works fellow with Prairie State Legal Services.
PSLS, in collaboration with the Public Interest Law Initiative, is announcing 2021 Virtual Expungement Clinics in Henry County. The clinics will provide free legal services to income-eligible individuals with old criminal records. The goal of the program is to assist community members struggling to access employment or housing as a result of criminal records that are eligible to be expunged or even sealed.
Project Oz
Two Twin City nonprofit agencies will expand services in areas of high need after being awarded state grants funded by marijuana tax money.
Project Oz and Prairie State Legal Services will both get about $200,000 to focus on areas of Bloomington affected by chronic and historical disinvestment, though amounts of the grants might not be final.
Prairie State Director Adrian Barr said his organization will use the money to do outreach to African Americans who traditionally distrust the criminal legal system. They generalize those experience to encompass all issues regarding the law. And as a result, they see no difference between civil and criminal law. So, they are less likely to seek help from formal institutions like Prairie State Legal Services, said Barr.