ST. LOUIS – As the trees and bricks fell, tears nearly fell for longtime St. Louis resident Bernice Jones.
"I feel like shouting," Jones said.
A wide range of emotions for Jones, who's been fed up with vacant buildings for years.
"Drug addicts, dope people and everything be there," she said.
She wants to move, but it's not that easy after almost 60 years of living in the area.
"It's awful,” she said. “I have no place to go."
The city budgeted nearly $4 million to demolish abandoned buildings this year. Mayor Lyda Krewson said that's almost double what was allocated last year.
"It still isn't enough to do what we need to do," Krewson said.
Better Family Life's clean sweep initiative looks to close that gap.
The organization demolished several vacant buildings in north St. Louis. It got help from private companies to cut down trees and trim over grown yards. Its army of volunteers hit the streets to pick up any trash they could get their hands on.
"This truly demonstrates what is possible when St. Louis comes together," James Clark with Better Family Life said.
Clark said getting rid of abandoned buildings improves quality of life.
"These type of projects breathe oxygen into the nostrils of our more challenged neighborhoods"
And with the help of Better Family Life, Jones hopes her neighborhood will look like it did nearly 60 years ago.
"Everything was so pretty," she said.
Better Family Life was in the Hamilton Heights and Wells-Goodfellow neighborhoods on Saturday. The organization plans to clean up three more before the summer is over.
