MIDTOWN SERVICE AND TREATMENT CENTER’S BIG SPRING FAMILY FEST
A whole lot of community interactivity will be happening Easter weekend outside The Salvation Army’s Midtown Service and Treatment Center and 3010 residential building, as a family walk precedes a day of family-friendly and personally and professionally empowering activities.
The Spring Family Fest, held in conjunction with Central Baptist Church, is a free outdoor community event that Midtown Service and Treatment Center treats as its most important local event of the year.
It will be held Saturday, April 16, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the corner of Washington Blvd. and Rev. T.E Huntley Ave., in St. Louis.
“We’re a part of the community, and people need to know that,” Kimberly Beck, executive director of the Midtown Service and Treatment Center, said. “We want to be part of the community, not just this service sitting in the community, like a compound that nobody can access.”
Businesses in the local Locust Business District are welcome to attend and mingle in the community-building event, as are residents of nearby middle and low-income housing.
Atlas, which is an elementary school in the Midtown neighborhood that offers special education support for autistic students, will have advocates attending and giving a testimonial speaking about the educational experience.
The ambition of the event encompasses numerous areas of life, under the title banner “Plans to give you hope.”
Free vital medical services are available for people without health insurance. This includes mammograms, testing for HIV, STI and COVID, prostate information, and alcohol and drug training.
Easter wouldn’t be Easter without Easter eggs, which will be part of an egg hunt for kids, who will also have bouncy house, family photography, face-painting, and dunking booth options. Polar Cops will be police giving away ice cream.
A fitness zone, in addition to the family fun walk from 8 to 9 a.m., will have dance instructors and a basketball game.
“The underlying theme of the Spring Fest is it’s National Hope Month,” Beck said. “We see a light at the end of the tunnel with COVID. That’s great. It inspires hope.”
Beck added, "It's Stress Management Month. We're providing folks with some tools to alleviate stress. Even though right now we are focused on opiate overdose, alcohol is still the #1 killer. Alcohol Awareness Month, we don't want people to forget. Some people have chronic alcohol disease whose organs shut down because they'd been drinking for so long -- diabetes, kidney disease, and liver disease."