{"id":149111,"date":"2026-05-03T14:53:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T18:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=149111"},"modified":"2026-05-03T14:53:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T18:53:01","slug":"150-attend-allentown-screening-on-second-chances-local-pardon-program-sees-growing-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=149111","title":{"rendered":"150 attend Allentown screening on second chances\u2014local pardon program sees growing demand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following this week&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Pardon Me<\/em>\u00a0screening at Allentown Symphony Hall, about 150 attendees\u2014largely community members\u2014joined a conversation on second chances, workforce access, and the long-term impact of criminal records.<\/p>\n<p>Lehigh County\u2019s Pardon Project continues to gain traction. Since establishing the program and becoming the first county in Pennsylvania to hire a dedicated pardon coordinator within the Public Defender\u2019s Office:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>143 individuals have applied<\/li>\n<li>70 applications have been qualified and submitted<\/li>\n<li>28 are now fully completed and awaiting Board of Pardons hearings<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cLehigh County Public Defender Kim Makoul deserves all the credit for making Lehigh the only county with a part-time coordinator for the Pardon Project,\u201d said County Executive Josh Siegel. \u201cThey are assisting folks who have paid their debt to society get back to being able to find a job, find housing and contribute to our community once again\u2026 we believe in second chances.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Information provided to TVL by:<br \/>\nTiffany Sondergaard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following this week&#8217;s\u00a0Pardon Me\u00a0screening at Allentown Symphony Hall, about 150 attendees\u2014largely community members\u2014joined a conversation on second chances, workforce access, and the long-term impact of criminal records. Lehigh County\u2019s Pardon &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=149111\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">150 attend Allentown screening on second chances\u2014local pardon program sees growing demand<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5716,69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allentown","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Kim-Makoul.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149113,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149111\/revisions\/149113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/149112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=149111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=149111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}