Location: Cabrini Green Legal Aid
Date: Monday, September 23, 2013; 6:00 pm-9:00 pm
I was intrigued when I saw that
there was a One Brick project to benefit a Law Firm. I mean, everyone loves making fun of the
lawyers and they have more or less acquired a shady reputation, right? So how come One Brick was associating itself
with a project to benefit a legal team?
Then I looked at the description on the website, which said, “Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA) provides
high-impact, free legal services to low-income Chicagoans in four areas of law:
family, housing, criminal records, and criminal defense. We integrate legal and
social services in order to improve our legal outcomes and extend our impact
beyond crisis support.” Wow, I didn't
even know such firms existed. It was their ‘40th Anniversary
Annual Benefit,’ and our job was to help them prepare for that through
stuffing and alphabetizing the nametags.
I almost landed at a wrong address
– not an unfamiliar predicament for me – but arrived just after 6 pm to find
One Brick regulars such as Laura, Tiffany, Irina, Matt, Gary and the up and coming
super volunteer, Charles Paul. Everyone
had assembled around a long table with Charles Paul at the head, probably the
perfect place from where he could entertain us.
A Cabrini Green staff member came over and told us about the firm,
reiterating that their main goal was to provide legal services to people who
couldn't otherwise afford counsel. I
asked her what the main difference was between them and the court appointed
legal counsel, and she said that sometimes courts deny Government counsel if you
are able to post bond. Cabrini Green
does not deny anyone if they fit within the low-income bracket. She then explained our task for the evening,
which was to prepare name tags for their gala on Thursday. There were sheets upon sheets of attendees
and we were to tear individual tags from the sheets, put them in plastic
lanyards and then arrange alphabetically in boxes. Looked like a low stress job if there ever
was one.
 |
| The Lanyard's |
I picked up a pile of sheets to
start with, and while everyone was tearing off tags from one sheet and stuffing
in lanyards, I decided to cut name tags from all of my sheets first and then
stuff them later. It was a repetitive job,
meaning we were chatting amongst ourselves and Tiffany was playing music on her
phone, where she asked us not to judge her based on her choices. I asked Charles Paul to tell us stories and
without missing a beat he started: “This
is about a girl who was lost in the woods and found herself in a house with 3
bears – Me and my buddies, Hansel and Gretel.” He had us all laughing hard at this, as did
Laura when she encountered some lanyards that were sticky. “It’s
slippery and sticky…that’s what she said.”
Charles Paul works in airlines industry and I told him about my buddy
who got to travel all over the world for free because of his job with
United. Charles Paul said that it was
absolutely true, at which all of us started dreaming about which destinations
we would visit if given this opportunity. We then talked about the upcoming ‘Emmy
Awards’ and everyone’s choice to win, ‘Breaking
Bad’. At this Gary started singing
the show’s praises and said that as a chemist, he could say that it was a great
show. Laura and I talked about upcoming
One Brick events and she was trying to get me to come to a ‘Single’s Mixer’ night on Friday, which was also a fundraiser. I said that I had in fact signed up as an EC,
but due to my friend visiting from out of town, had backed out. When the ladies heard that my friend was a
French guy they absolutely insisted that I bring him along, even though I told
them he has a girlfriend. “But he’s French”, was their
response. Aah well, I think that being
able to speak “The language of love”
does come with some privileges. Well as
can be seen, we were all over the place in our conversations and with 900+
guest cards to sort through, we had plenty of time.
 |
| All boxed up |
We had finally finished cutting
the tags and putting them inside the lanyards and so the next job was to stack
them inside the boxes alphabetically, something that Laura, Tiffany and Gary
did. Irina and I were given a different
task, which was to wrap some printed plastic sheets on to themselves and stick
with a scotch tape in order to make something like a hollow plastic cylinder
that was open at both ends. The staff
member said that they wanted to put these around lit candles on the dinner
table. Let’s take a time out here. I said that one thing that my 10 years of
studying plastics had taught me, was to not have plastic sheets millimeters away
from a flame. Gary confirmed that, but
it is what they had decided to do.
Hopefully Wilson is on their speed dial for Thursday! The final task was to prepare silent auction
sheets and put them into their stands and then we were done. I was exhausted and went home while others
went for a drink. It had been a fun
evening catching up with my fellow One Bricker’s. And I had also learned to appreciate that lawyers do not deserve to get a bad rap. They are not out there just to make a quick buck.
They actually care for justice…and for those who need it the most.
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