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COMMITTEE SPOTLIGHT Lawyers Against Waste: Beautifying Houston One Park/Neighborhood at a Time By Stephan D. Selinidis Lawyers Against Waste (“LAW”) is a committee within the Houston Bar Association with a simple but important goal: making Houston beautiful. For the past 11 years, around Earth Day, the committee partners with the City of Houston and Keep Houston Beautiful to put on a “Trash Bash,” in which 100-150 volunteers from the legal community and their families spend a Saturday morning cleaning up a local park or neighborhood. The volunteers include not only lawyers from firms and corporate legal departments, but also judges, court personnel, and law school students, making it an excellent way to network while cleaning up the city. During the Trash Bash, volunteers organize into groups to work on particular areas of the park or neighborhood. Tasks include anything from planting trees and landscaping to power washing barbeque pits for the public to use. According to Lori Warner, one of LAW’s co-chairs, one of the more rewarding activities is helping with the “Gift of Trees” program. Gift of Trees is part of a multi-organizational effort to plant over one million trees throughout the City of Houston within the next three years. LAW volunteers assist by planting the donated trees, which can endure for decades and make Houston a much more attractive place to live and work. All the necessary equipment is provided to the volunteers by LAW and its partners. The Trash Bash, however, is not all about work. Breakfast, lunch, t-shirts and door prizes are provided for volunteers. The costs of the event are underwritten by sponsors such as Waste Management, Inc. and Brown and Caldwell. LAW originally focused on cleaning up the downtown and midtown areas of Houston, but has since expanded to areas throughout the city. For the past five years, LAW’s Trash Bash cleaned up MacGregor Park, located near the University of Houston Campus. LAW adopted MacGregor Park to enhance the legal community’s efforts to have a more positive long-term impact on the park and its surrounding community. In light of the damage caused by Hurricane Ike, however, the location of the 2009 Trash Bash will change to help some of the hardest hit areas. LAW is committed to making each year’s Trash Bash larger than the last in terms of participating volunteers and the amount of clean-up work accomplished. Fliers for the 2009 Trash Bash will begin circulating in March. Additional information regarding LAW and the 2009 Trash Bash can be obtained from Rusty Bienvenue of the Houston Bar Association at (713) 759-1133 or LAW’s co-chairs: Paul Sarahan of Fulbright & Jaworski Stephan Selinidis is an associate at Harrison, Bettis, Staff, McFarland & Weems and a member of The Houston Lawyer editorial board. |
