3Ls Get Their Hands Dirty

Project restores homes in USC neighborhood

—By Maria Iacobo

Full circle. That’s one way to look at last week’s project that drew 3Ls off campus and into a nearby Los Angeles neighborhood to help rehabilitate a home.

About 20 students signed up with the Habitat for Humanity program and spent a day in the sun digging ditches, power-washing stucco, creating window screens and painting. The work mirrored their first week of school in 2005 when, as a group, they painted a local school for what is now an annual community service project.

USC Law students work on a Habitat for  Humanity project in South L.A. Feb. 8

And, it offered the students an example of how they could make an impact in their community.

“Student groups like the Public Interest Law Foundation foster an emphasis on how you can be professionally involved in giving back to your community,” said Shiri Klima, Student Bar Association 3L president.  “All these other activities remind you that you are first and foremost a member of your community.”

When Klima arranged the project with Habitat for Humanity, she thought that although construction “might be kind of intimidating to some people,” Habitat was well-known and would provide needed guidance on the work.

“Brush with Kindness” is Habitat’s program to repair and restore homes whose owners are unable to financially manage the necessary work. Supplies and tools are donated; Habitat supplies what’s missing for the individual projects.

While several students moved huge piles of gravel to the backyard to prepare the home’s perimeter for improved drainage, Habitat’s Jan Grothe noted that about two dozen USC undergraduates would arrive the following day to complete the work.

“I think it’s important for people in South Los Angeles to know that USC students want to leave their four corners of the city and get involved with the community,” said 3L Lindsay Toczylowski.

With both graduate students and undergraduates working in this neighborhood, USC students have added to their considerable record of community service.