Lawyer Group Does Not Let a Pandemic Stop 30+ Year Motion for Kids Program

The 31st annual Motion for Kids (MFK) holiday gift-giving project for approximately 1,500 metropolitan St. Louis area children who are in the foster care system, or children whose lives have been severely impacted by the criminal justice system, continues in 2020 with a different format.

The Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis (BAMSL) and the St. Louis Bar Foundation are proud to partner this year with the St. Louis Cardinals Care Program, the Isaac Bruce Foundation, the Missouri Bar, the St. Louis Fire Department, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the St. Louis legal community.

A yearly holiday party usually is held at Chaifetz Arena to provide cheer to area children who otherwise would not experience the joy of the holiday season. This year, the event was revised to become a drive-through event at the St. Louis Fire Department headquarters and training tower facility.

However, COVID-related restrictions cancelled both plans for an in-person event, but the Motion for Kids Committee was determined to ensure the children still receive their gifts. The committee worked tirelessly to make sure that happens before the holidays.

Local children’s support organizations and agencies identify the children who receive the gifts. Those children are matched up with sponsors from the St. Louis legal community (lawyers, judges, paralegals, office administrators, law students, legal secretaries and their families). Each sponsor is asked to purchase and wrap gifts chosen specifically from each child’s wish list. Instead of a random gift, children receive gifts they truly want.

This year, BAMSL volunteers are delivering the gifts directly to the agencies, who will help distribute the gifts to each child.

BAMSL members Christina Lewis Abate, vice president of underwriting for The Bar Plan, and Cardina Johnson, associate general counsel of the Illinois Education Association, are co-chairs of this year’s Motion for Kids, with significant assistance from an active committee, BAMSL staff and hundreds of volunteers.