Page 10 - Briefcase Volume 37 Number 1

COMMUNITY

SERVICE

PROJECTS

UH Law Center 1Ls spent the day volunteering at the Houston Food Bank.

A TIME TO GIVE BACK

First-year University of Houston Law Center students bonded with volunteers helped prepare meal packages for those in need.
their new classmates by volunteering with faculty and administrators Additional students took to the outdoors for their service projects. At
for a variety of projects before classes began this fall. Beauty’s Community Garden in Independence Heights, volunteers
The initiative, started by Dean Leonard M. Baynes, and implemented by assisted with mulching and making beds for planting and weeding.
Associate Dean for Student Affairs Sondra Tennessee, is intended to set At the Buffalo Bayou Water Works Building participants gardened,
a good example for Law Center students entering the legal profession in removed invasive species, picked up trash and cleaned trails.
terms of providing support to the community.
“It gives the students an opportunity to build lasting friendships before
classes even begin. In addition, in seeing the long lines of individuals
waiting patiently, sometimes several hours, before the legal workshops
started, demonstrates that there a lot of individuals in our community
without legal representation,” Baynes said.
With the assistance of Houston Volunteer Lawyers, some students
assisted at a veterans’ legal advice clinic held at the Michael E. DeBakey
Veterans Affairs Medical Center where they sat in on meetings with
veterans seeking legal advice.
Others received a preview of immigration law at a naturalization
workshop at the BakerRipley Leonel Castillo Community Center
and of criminal law at a pro bono juvenile record sealing clinic at the
University of Houston’s Student Center. At the Houston Food Bank,

10 Briefcase 2018