Capital Law Students Give Back to Community on Student Service Day

March 25, 2008

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

"We wanted to build 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 and serve the community.

A group of 15 traveled to Bellefontaine to work in the Habitat for Humanity ReStore Center. The work consisted of one crew mixing, marking and organizing hundreds of donated paint cans and another crew building a shed from scratch. Curt Hochbein was the lucky volunteer who braved the carrying of heavy hot water heaters and water softeners out of a very dark and challenging basement. Professor Snapp facilitated the crew and provided lunch for everyone.

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 worked 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.

Volunteers at the Habitat for Humanity work site: (left to right) Professor Jeff Snapp, Audra Beckett, John Bruner, Jeff Coleman, Katherine Keenan, Mark Weiker, Curt Hochbein, Matt Young, Mary Nienaber-Foster (with Ethan and Maggie), Kyle Witucky, Paige Kohn, Ben Hoelzel, Ravisha Kumar. Megan Hochbein not shown.