Y L D P R E S I D E N T ’ S M E S S A G E M e l i s s a M o r a - A d v e n t i s t H e a l t h S y s t e m
lawyers helping Children dream
in the 2017 fall session alone , lawyers have volunteered 144 hours reading to 122 children , and 854 books have already been donated to the children through the read to dream program .
The old joke goes : Question : “ What do you call 1,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean ?” Answer : “ A good start .” Too often , the legal profession gets a bad rap with outsiders who either have little knowledge or misinformation about have what lawyers actually do and the standards to which lawyers are held . As a young lawyer putting in long hours trying to please partners and clients , it quickly became difficult to manage this perception of the profession . Ironically , the reality is that lawyers are out in the world doing a tremendous amount of good — and not always buried by those long hours in the courtroom or in the office writing contracts . Lawyers are making our communities better .
For instance , at The Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division ’ s annual Affiliate Outreach Conference held January 12-13 this year , there were 29 different affiliate Bar groups vying for grant money to support projects that would help other young lawyers and the communities at large served by these Bar groups . These projects range from supporting legal aid clinics for the less fortunate to benefitting youth in mock trials . This is just a tiny snapshot of the good lawyers are doing all around the State of Florida . Representatives from the HCBA YLD attended the Conference and presented a project benefiting children in the Hillsborough County community that has become very important to the HCBA : The John Germany Young Reading Initiative ’ s Read to Dream mentoring program . In response to the HCBA YLD ’ s request for a grant , The Florida Bar YLD awarded a grant of $ 1,660 for books and school supply donations for our program .
The Read to Dream program is the vision of the late John Germany , who was a Hillsborough County attorney , founding member of the Holland & Knight law firm , and a judge in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit . Germany was the antithesis of any lawyer joke and a dedicated member
Thanks to HCBA member Melanie Griffin and her mother ( not shown ), who collected donations of books for the Read to Dream program at Melanie ’ s recent baby shower .
of the Tampa Bay community . He helped hatch the plans for the University of South Florida and was instrumental in finding funds to build the downtown library , which bears his name . John Germany was always a reader and dreamer and credited his long and fine career to the gift of a book he received at a young age . Before his passing , he shared the early development of a plan to share books with children in the community and left the financial means to jump start this one last civic project , now known as the John Germany Young Reading Initiative . It is the HCBA ’ s honor to continue to participate in and help grow the program .
The Read to Dream program is volunteer-staffed and addresses the lowest reading levels in Hillsborough County public schools by providing engaging reading activities and books for children in at-risk or underserved communities . The focus of the program is to share and promote the excitement and enjoyment of reading through small group reading sessions with children , help children improve their reading ability , expose them to a wide variety of books , and provide them with their very own books to encourage them to take ownership of their reading .
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6 M A R - A P R 2 0 1 8 | H C B A L A W Y E R
Y L D
P R E S I D E N T ’ S
M E S S A G E
Melissa Mora - Adventist Health System
lawyers helping Children dream
in the 2017 fall session alone, lawyers have volunteered 144 hours
reading to 122 children, and 854 books have already been donated
to the children through the read to dream program.
The old joke goes:
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