HALO Students Aid East St. Louis Residents
Students in the UC Davis School of Law Humanitarian Aid Legal Organization (HALO) traveled to East St. Louis, Illinois, over spring break to work with the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation on issues such as housing fraud, help other community organizations in teaching lessons in "street law" to local high school students, volunteer at a thrift shop and soup kitchen, and provide aid to the poor and homeless.
The 17 students traveled on March 21 to East St. Louis, which sits directly across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. The city is a predominately African American community that has been profoundly impacted by the loss of jobs as factories, meatpacking plants, and railroad facilities left the region. Over the course of the past four decades, it has become a tragic example of urban blight, with vacant buildings, gang violence, failing sewers, substandard schools, and other problems plaguing residents.
HALO students participating in the trip included Alexis Alvarez '11, Ariel Brown '11, Caitlin Hunter '11, Eric Yau '10, Fatima Alloo '11, Josh Eisenberg '11, Ji-Hyun Cho '10, Kara Abelson '11, Karli Bobus '11, Kelly Martin '11, Lorin Kline '10, Maggie Trinh '11, Melissa Chiu '10, Nevin Trehan '11, Scott Grzenczyk '11, Shea Brack '11, and Tiffany Fong '11. Students wrote about the trip for a blog on the HALO website, expressing the importance of the experience.
"Though the tangible accomplishments we made during our time in East St. Louis may have been small, I still believe the trip was important," Kline stated. "And it is my hope that we inspired some hope in the people we met and let them know that everyone has not forgotten, that there are people willing to help, and that compassion does exist. It is just one step, but I think we all grew from the experience."