Our crowdfunding campaign has ended but you can still support UServeL.A. by clicking here.
ONE MORE DAY!
Tomorrow marks the last day of 2019, and the last day of our campaign! Thanks to your generous donations, we already have reason to celebrate the New Year – with 21% of our goal reached, we can send 5 UCLA Law students on Service Learning Trips in 2020.
But we can have an even greater impact on our students’ lives and the vulnerable communities that they support.
Help us by spreading the word – please share our campaign page https://spark.ucla.edu/probono with your friends and family so we can reach 100%!
A huge THANK YOU to the dozens of donors who have generously supported our campaign!
We are in the final stretch with just 4 days left. Please take a moment to share our link https://spark.ucla.edu/probono with your network. Any gift, of any size, provides critical support to UCLA Law students – like Christopher Galeano, ’21 – allowing them to gain frontline experience as they fight homelessness and housing instability, provide holistic legal services to indigent mothers, and assist asylum seekers at the border.
"I am a second-year law student at UCLA School of Law, specializing in Public Interest Law and Policy and Critical Race Studies. My desire to work more directly with members of the immigrant community influenced my decision to go to law school. This is why when I got the opportunity, I volunteered with El Centro Legal Clinic’s Naturalization Clinic and became a member of Law Students for Immigrant Justice (LSIJ). After completing my first finals week as a law student, a group of us from LSIJ volunteered to spend a week at a detention center in Dilley, Texas to assist women and children seeking asylum into the U.S. While there, I was given the opportunity to help clients prepare for their credible fear interviews with asylum officers.
After listening to their harrowing journeys, it was incredible to hear them confidently assert their right to asylum during their interviews. I also was able to help facilitate sessions geared towards educating clients on the U.S. asylum process and what life would look after their release from detention. Though the women and children were visibly exhausted, behind the many questions they had about the process and what was next was hope for a better life. It was here I realized how important it is to have volunteers and attorneys helping asylum seekers at these detention centers.
At the end of these sessions one of my favorite things to do was to call out state names to identify and give participants a sheet of paper with information of legal services found in the state they would hopefully soon call home. It was great seeing their faces light up knowing there was help for them once outside of the detention center. I realized then that the kind of work done at Dilley needed to go beyond the detention center and in different capacities, which is why this trip reinforced my desire to become an impact litigator.
My trip to Dilley gave me the opportunity to work collaboratively with volunteers, law students, and attorneys to help directly impacted persons seek asylum in the U.S. During this trip I helped clients prepare for their asylum interviews and for life outside of the detention center. In doing so, I not only gained firsthand experience doing case work and exposure to the complexities of the asylum process, I also gained a better understanding of what my future work as an impact litigator could entail. Against the backdrop of changing policies and uncertainty, my trip to Dilley allowed me to utilize my developing legal skills and contribute meaningfully to the situation of our clients.” – Christopher Galeano, ’21
Thanks to your generous donations, we’ve already raised an impressive $5,319 to support UCLA Law Student Service Learning Trips!
With only 8 days left, please share Sasha’s story with your friends and family to help us reach 100% of our goal!
"In law school, I had the opportunity to travel and volunteer with the CARA Pro Bono project, working with asylum-seeking women and children who were detained in Dilley, Texas, and with Al Otro Lado, helping prepare asylum-seekers in Tijuana for their credible fear interviews. These trips profoundly changed my law school experience and set me on the career path I am on now. Volunteering on the ground with these amazing organizations taught me so much about zealous advocacy, and how to respond to humanitarian crises in real time. I hope that every law student has the experience to participate in a service-learning trip." – Sasha Novis, David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy, UCLA Law Class of 2019
We’re 20% of the way to our goal! Because of you, we are now able to support 5 UCLA Law students on Service Learning Trips, where they will gain hands-on experience all while making a positive impact on the lives of others.
But we aren’t stopping yet. With only 12 days remaining, please consider sharing our campaign (https://spark.ucla.edu/probono) with your friends and family. A gift in any amount has an immediate impact in supporting our students and the vulnerable communities they serve.
“At UCLA, I specialized in the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy (EPILP) and Critical Race Studies (CRS). EPILP and CRS were why I chose UCLA. The people and the programs shaped the way I think about law and justice, allowed me to flourish through irreplaceable community, and provided invaluable support to make the path I am currently on possible. EPILP made it possible for me and three of my classmates to volunteer for one week at the family detention center in Dilley, Texas in June 2017 – I was eager to be on the ground and assist asylum seekers. That trip was life-changing and made me rethink my role as a legal advocate and the traditional notions of a client-attorney relationship. These trips gave me a greater appreciation for attorneys working tirelessly at the frontlines and I am deeply thankful for the opportunity to participate as an advocate-in-training." – Heejin Hwang, UCLA Law Class of 2019; The University of Texas School of Law’s Environmental Justice Fellow at Lone Star Legal Aid
To those of you who have donated so far, thank you so much! We would so appreciate if you could share our campaign with friends and family! Every donation, big or small, get us that much closer to our goal.
Your support helps fund the next cohort of UCLA Law students and public interest lawyers – like Kate Lewis, J.D. '19 – as they embark on Service Learning Trips to help vulnerable communities and receive hands-on experience.
“I write this from Bakersfield, where I am currently visiting my client who is being held here at the Mesa Verde ICE detention center. It's my first ever visit to Mesa Verde. Nonetheless, I felt confident in my ability to navigate the facility and ICE's arcane security rules, in large part to the experiences I had as a law student. While at UCLA Law, I was able to work in two different immigration detention centers – the South Texas Family Residential Center, in Dilley, Texas, and the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, in southern California – funded by UCLA Law public interest programs. In a time when the entire weight of the federal government has been thrown towards detaining and deporting immigrants, the ability to fight back straight out of law school is invaluable.”
- Kate Lewis, Law Fellow, Immigration Program; Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto; UCLA Law/PILP Class of 2019
A donation of $10 will cover one meal for one of our law students on the trip.
A donation of $25 will cover the cost of gas for one day during our trip.
A donation of $50 will cover the cost of a renting a car for one day of the trip.
A donation of $100 will cover lodging for one of our students for one night of the trip.
A donation of $250 will cover the cost of renting a car for our trip.
A donation of $500 will cover the cost of lodging for all of our students on the trip.
A donation of $1,000 will fund 1 current Law student on a trip this spring. This includes transportation costs, food and lodging.
Your generous donation can send 5 Law students on one service learning trip this spring.