Mission Statement: The goal of the Community Outreach Program is to educate the community of the Court’s functions and to encourage and facilitate community involvement in order to help the Southern District of Illinois become more aware of the needs and issues of its population and to improve the quality of life in our area. This can be achieved by increasing the number of Court/Probation family members involved in communities. Some past activities include:

Self-Defense Awareness Class: Mark Rubbert, executive director and head instructor of St. Louis Ki Society (www.stlki.org) led a class on self-defense awareness on February 7, 2007. This course emphasized techniques to redirect aggressive confrontations to deescalate potentially dangerous situations.

Project Angle Tree: All of the courts units participated in the donation of money, purchasing of gifts, stuffing stockings, and organizing activities to help area underprivileged children. This is a large yearly project through Catholic Social Services in conjunction with the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis and the St. Louis Rams.

Make a Difference Day: Before & After Volunteers from Probation, Bankruptcy and District Courts together with over $800 in donated funds were used to spruce up the Nelson Mandela Elementary School in East St. Louis, Illinois on October 21, 2006. Projects included landscaping work, painting classrooms, repairing playground equipment and laying gravel in the playground area.

Annual Blood Drive: The annual American Red Cross (www.redcross.org) blood drive was hosted in Benton on June 20, 2006.

Women's History Month Celebration: The Outreach Committee hosted a program in Benton honoring Women's History Month. The guest speaker was Professor Barbara Brown from Southern Illinois University (www.siu.edu) who discussed women in political life and future trends.