Austin Habitat and Austin Bar dedicate its latest partnership home
AUSTIN, Texas (June 10, 2011) - Legal Build — the Austin Bar Association and Austin Habitat for Humanity partnership – celebrates a milestone by dedicating a home for Manuel Jaimes and his family this week.
The Legal Build Committee and Austin Habitat for Humanity will dedicate the home on Saturday, June 11, at 3:00 p.m. at 7214 Thanas Way. Mr. Jaimes – a single father of a young daughter – has worked hard: applying for a Habitat home, putting in the required hours of sweat equity, taking the classes required of all Habitat homeowners, and signing the mortgage papers requiring him to pay Habitat for their home.
This is sure to be a memorable occasion for Mr. Jaimes and his family, as well as the members of Austin’s legal community, as it will forever change the life of a local family that has worked long and hard to get out of substandard housing. Although every house Habitat builds is special, this event signifies the continued strong collaboration between the Austin Bar and Austin Habitat.
Every two years, Austin’s legal community comes together to provide a tangible benefit to an Austin family and is just one of the ways that the Austin legal community gives back to the vibrant city its members call home. Jessica Mangrum, a partner at Thompson Coe Cousins & Irons, co-chaired the 2011 Legal Build effort. Underscoring the contributions of the legal community, Mangrum, who has served in other leadership roles with the Bar’s community service organizations, notes, “The Austin legal community has been a consistent supporter of affordable housing issues and Austin Habitat for Humanity’s mission to end poverty housing via home ownership.”
Mishell Kneeland, an Assistant Attorney General and realtor with Moxie Realty Group, who was also homeless as a child and co-chaired this year’s biennial effort, agrees that home ownership opens many doors, “The benefits that a family obtains from home ownership extend beyond a simple roof over their heads. A home changes everything. This is one way for the legal community’s actions to speak in ways that words cannot,” Kneeland says.
Mangrum says that this opportunity for the Austin Bar to work with Austin Habitat is a win-win situation for all involved. “So many of us were there the day the walls on Manuel’s home were raised – it will be amazing to see him ready to move into his home.”
Many legal organizations gave time and money to help build this home. Among Legal Build’s major contributors this year were The Austin Bar Foundation; Popp, Gray & Hutcheson, LLP; Cantilo & Bennett, L.L.P.; Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons, L.L.P.; Baker Botts, L.L.P; Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati; Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody; Haynes and Boone; Hunton & Williams; McGinnis, Lochridge & Kilgore, L.L.P.; Scott, Douglas & McConnico; U.S. Legal Support,Inc. Together, the Austin Bar and Austin Habitat continue to change lives, as they hope to continue doing in the future through the dynamic Legal Build partnership. |
