Capital Law Students Give Back to Community on Student Service Day

March 17, 2008

Student Service Day provides Capital University Law School students and their families an opportunity to give back to the community this Fri., Mar. 21. Participants can choose between two activities: volunteering for Habitat for Humanity or for the Columbus Literacy Council.

"We hope to build some camaraderie among students and a relationship with the community with a regularly-scheduled service event,” says Mark Weiker, 1L representative for the Student Bar Association, sponsor of Student Service Day. “The 'service' aspect of the legal careers we are developing seems to be the most easily forgotten.  This is one thing that we can do now to add value to our legal education experience and serve the community.

Those volunteering for Habitat for Humanity will work with Professor Jeff Snapp and Habitat for Humanity of Logan County to put the finishing touches on a recently-built home. Volunteers will be landscaping and doing other outdoor tasks to complete the home.

Through volunteer labor and donations of money and materials, Habitat for Humanity builds and rehabilitates houses with the help of the homeowner families. Habitat houses are sold to partner families at no profit and financed with affordable loans. The homeowner's mortgage payments are used to build additional Habitat houses.

Volunteers for the Columbus Literacy Council will work with mostly non-native speakers of English to help them practice every day conversation skills and reading skills. The Columbus Literacy Council is a volunteer-based organization dedicated to increasing the level of functional literacy of adults in Central Ohio through teaching the English language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Adults come to the program voluntarily because of their desire to learn the American language and culture.

For more details about volunteering, click here.