May 10, 2023 by Natalie Cochran
Lone Star Legal Aid Accepts an Award at the Houston Mayor’s Volunteer Appreciation Awards Luncheon
HOUSTON, TX – Lone Star Legal Aid, alongside dozens of other volunteers and local nonprofit organizations, were recipients of volunteer appreciation awards Friday morning at City Hall. We were presented with the Mayor’s Community Engagement Award. We received the award because of our involvement with the City of Houston Department of Neighborhoods (DON) and Neighborhood Recovery Community Development Corporation’s (NRCDC) “A Month of Service,” a free hybrid workshop series covering legal topics. While predominantly online, an in-person event is held once a month at 601 Sawyer Avenue for estate planning intake and document execution.
The “A Month of Service” partners include: Neighborhood Recovery Community Development Corporation, Harris County Appraisal District, Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector’s Office, Houston Volunteer Lawyers, TSU Earl Carl Institute, Lone Star Legal Aid, and the Houston Bar Association. The partners, together with the agencies, collectively plan the workshops.
The workshops cover topics like: eviction and tenant rights, workers’ rights, child custody and divorce, consumer concerns & bankruptcy, immigration concerns, wills and estate planning, holographic wills during COVID-19, inherited property, foreclosure prevention, property tax protest hearings, first-time homebuyer education classes, and coffee and conversations on neighborhood concerns.
In addition, a monthly Amateur Hour features poetry, music, dance, and other arts, offering attendees a light moment of entertainment and distraction from the issues of the day.
Supervising Attorney of Pro Bono Involvement Jessie Campbell initiated our partnership with DON at the beginning of the pandemic, and since then, has established LSLA as regular presenters, continuously connecting them with LSLA experts on a wide range of legal topics. Our Pro Bono Office, Foreclosure Prevention Project, and Eviction Right to Counsel Initiative have participated in “A Month of Service,” providing the community with critical legal information on the most pressing issues facing Houstonians.
Communications Director Clarissa Ayala, and Communications Assistant Natalie Cochran, accepted the Community Engagement Award for LSLA. They both met with other nonprofit leaders and recipients to discuss their work, hoping to ignite future community partnership and outreach endeavors.
Thank you, Mayor Turner, for recognizing Lone Star Legal Aid as a 2023 Community Engagement Award recipient.
Watch the Mayor’s full Volunteer Awards below. (LSLA Award at 41:15.)
Lone Star Legal Aid (LSLA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit law firm focused on advocacy for low-income and underserved populations by providing free legal education, advice, and representation. LSLA serves millions of people at 125% of federal poverty guidelines, who live in 72 counties in the eastern and Gulf Coast regions of Texas, and 4 counties in Southwest Arkansas. LSLA focuses its resources on maintaining, enhancing, and protecting income and economic stability; preserving housing; improving outcomes for children; establishing and sustaining family safety, stability, health, and wellbeing; and assisting populations with special vulnerabilities, like those with disabilities, the aging, survivors of crime and disasters, the unemployed and underemployed, the unhoused, those with limited English language skills, and the LGBTQIA+ community. To learn more about Lone Star Legal Aid, visit our website at www.LoneStarLegal.org.
Media contact: media@lonestarlegal.org
