On the verge of 75, Caroline Pennington found herself starting all over again. After a lifetime of hard work and solo parenting, the former marketing executive was looking forward to a comfortable retirement until she fell victim to an investment scam that wiped out her half-million-dollar nest egg. “It was
Linda Moore, program associate in the grants department of The Florida Bar Foundation, retired in December after more than seven years of service. One of Moore’s major contributions to the Foundation and to the legal aid delivery system in Florida was her work on the Foundation’s Staff Attorney Salary Supplementation
The Florida Bar Foundation has provided its legal aid grantees with updated projections for anticipated grant cuts through the 2015-16 fiscal year. By then, the Foundation anticipates that it will have made cuts of 76 percent since 2009-10 in the general support grants it provides 30 legal aid grantees throughout
Amanda Alvarez, 18, comes across as that recent high school grad who racked up a long list of achievements. She has the poise, diction and vocabulary of a student council president. With her long, dark hair, tasteful makeup and neat-as-a-pin pencil skirt, she has the grace and style of a
Their names are simple and inviting: HELP and CASA, the Spanish word for “home.” These Miami-area organizations are as welcoming as possible by design because they work with two of the hardest-to-serve client populations. HELP Inc. (HIV Education and Law Project) provides legal assistance to people with HIV and AIDS,
At 18 months of age, Karls Gonzalez seemed like any other happy toddler. He would return his mother’s smile, had a budding vocabulary that included words like “mama,” “papa,” and “cookies” and had developed a healthy appetite for solid food. But by the time he turned 2, he had become
As an Equal Justice Works Fellow advocating for mentally ill prisoners, Cassandra Capobianco uncovered a startling overuse of tear gas and pepper spray in Florida prisons, resulting in serious burns to inmates already suffering from diagnosed psychiatric disorders. “A lot of these clients were burned so badly they required extensive
Growing up in San Juan del Rio, Queretaro, a city on Mexico’s central plateau, Leonardo Leal realized from a young age that knowledge would be the key to his future. His grandmother Magdalena raised him until he was 12, and although she had little education herself, she instilled its importance
Kenneth Jacobs held a job his entire adult life until 2008 when he suffered a heart attack. It was the first in a string of serious health complications — including coronary artery disease — that sidelined him from work and left him homeless. “I was always in the hospital,” said
Sparkly. An eager, cheerful learner. Ashlyn Sikes’ teacher used these words to describe the Tallahassee second-grader, who finished out the school year with her best report card ever. ” I love her enthusiasm for school,” commented the teacher. Ashlyn’s parents, Adam and Amy Sikes, are proud of their 8-year-old daughter,
Bruce B. Blackwell, an Orlando attorney widely renowned for his pro bono work, professional leadership and service to the organized Bar, received The Florida Bar Foundation’s 2011 Medal of Honor Award for a lawyer, the Florida legal profession’s highest award, June 23 at the Foundation’s 35th annual reception and dinner.
Confined to a wheelchair by multiple sclerosis, Clearwater, Fla., resident Patricia Redding, 50, had become a prisoner in her own apartment when promised modifications to make it wheelchair accessible and ADA-compliant were never made. Later, when raw sewage backed up into Redding’s unit, the property manager at Norton Apartments also
