January 19, 2018 by Clarissa Ayala
W.M. Keck Foundation Awards Lone Star Legal Aid $250,000 Hurricane Harvey Relief Grant
For Immediate Release
Houston, TX — The W.M. Keck Foundation has awarded Lone Star Legal Aid a $250,000 grant to support LSLA’s program-wide Hurricane Harvey relief efforts by providing additional staff and resources in its Disaster Relief Unit. The attorneys and paralegals in this unit assist survivors with the complex legal issues that arise after a disaster.
The W.M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 in Los Angeles by William Myron Keck, the founder of The Superior Oil Company. “Mr. Keck envisioned a philanthropic institution that would provide far-reaching benefits to humanity.”[1] Today, the Foundation continues Mr. Keck’s vision and primarily supports science, engineering, and medical research as well as undergraduate research programs.
Although the Foundation does not usually fund legal services are outside of the Los Angeles area, it decided to make a special Hurricane Harvey relief grant to Lone Star Legal Aid as a way of giving back to the hometown of Superior Oil. W.M. Keck founded Superior Oil Company in Houston, Texas in 1921. The company was sold to Mobil Oil in 1984, and the proceeds funded much of the W.M. Keck Foundation’s endowment.
The W.M. Keck Foundation’s generous gift to Lone Star Legal Aid will result in critically important benefits for Hurricane Harvey survivors. With disaster legal services, Lone Star Legal Aid attorneys and paralegals are able to assist survivors with relocation and transitional housing; evictions and lease terminations; foreclosures; home repair scams; insurance claims and appeals; property rights, title-clearing, property related probate or tax problems, and of course a large number of FEMA appeals.
Lone Star Legal Aid’s Director of Disaster Legal Services, Saundra Brown, stated that “providing us with valuable resources we wouldn’t normally be able to afford, including the opportunity to add additional staff, will allow us to assist greater numbers of Harvey survivors and successfully resolve the short- and long-term legal problems they face. We’ve spent years over 15 years helping tens of thousands of disaster survivors and we are ready to help survivors of Harvey as well.”
The W. M. Keck Foundation seeks to generate far-reaching benefits for humanity by supporting pioneering discoveries in science, engineering and medicine, and organizations that enrich the lives of children, youth, and families. For more information about the W. M. Keck Foundation, visit http://wmkeck.org.
Lone Star Legal Aid is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit law firm focused on advocacy on behalf of low-income and underserved populations. Lone Star Legal Aid serves the millions of people at 125% of federal poverty guidelines that reside in 72 counties in the eastern and Gulf Coast regions of Texas, and also 4 counties of southwest Arkansas. Lone Star Legal Aid focuses its resources on maintaining, enhancing, and protecting income and economic stability; preserving housing; improving outcomes for children; establishing and sustaining family safety and stability, health and well‐being; and assisting populations with special vulnerabilities, such as those who have disabilities, or who are elderly, homeless, or have limited English language skills. To learn more about Lone Star Legal Aid, visit our website at www.lonestarlegal.org.
Media Contact: Clarissa Ayala
[1] http://wmkeck.org/about-us/history
