Yo Boulevard!

Back-to-school Block Party And Community Cookout

As part of our prevention efforts, the United States Attorney’s Office participates in community events that prepare students for school and raises awareness about the mission of the Department of Justice. One such event is a back-to-school block party and community cookout hosted each year by Atlanta City Councilmember Kwanza Hall and Fulton County Commissioner Joan Garner in the Boulevard Corridor.  The goals of the annual block party and cookout are to promote community awareness and involvement. The Boulevard Corridor runs through the Old Fourth Ward, the in-town Atlanta neighborhood that is the home of the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, and the Atlanta Medical Center. Unfortunately, the area is also infamous for low income housing and street drug sales.  More than 600 children live in the Boulevard Community with almost half of them living below the poverty line

In its third year (2014), the event brought together more than 75 city, county, state, federal, and nonprofit agencies that provide services and resources for children, families, and senior residents.  The United States Attorney’s Office, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the United States Secret Service, along with its “Operation Safe Kids” Forensic Unit, were among several governmental agencies that participated in the block party, distributing information about programs and services and answering attendees’ questions.

Operation Safe Kids uses leading technology to produce a biographical document containing a child's photograph along with digitized, inkless fingerprints and other vital identification information. Parents receive the document that can later be reproduced immediately for mass distribution to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. This system saves valuable time when there is no time to spare, in matters involving missing and exploited children.