Excerpt from WYSO
Several community leaders are being honored for their work providing decades of assistance to underserved residents in Dayton. The honorees will be part of the Access To Justice awards ceremony taking place at Sinclair Community College on Thursday, Nov.14, from 5:30 to 8 p.m.
The Awards are presented annually by the law firms Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. (ABLE) and Legal Aid of Western Ohio, Inc. (LAWO). The firms have partnered with the Greater Dayton Volunteer Lawyers Project (GDVLP).
To get the details on this year’s award recipients, WYSO spoke with ABLE Director of Development and Communications, Karla Garrett Harshaw:
Karla Garrett Harshaw: ABLE and LAWO are the nonprofit law firms of this community that serve economically disadvantaged people. We help them avoid homelessness, for instance, by avoiding evictions. We assist in preparing civil protection orders to keep survivors of domestic violence safe. We assist senior citizens being abused. We handle health care benefits, education issues, and also assist with defending the rights of immigrants and migrant workers as well.
All funds raised locally are used to provide free legal assistance to economically disadvantaged people of this community. While located in Dayton for more than 50 years now, we're headquartered in Toledo and cover 32 counties in northwest Ohio.
JK: Coming up, you've got the Access to Justice Awards celebration, which will celebrate the work of three people. The recipient of the Patricia Rousseau Community Advocacy Award is Dr. Gary Leroy, and he's being presented with this for his outstanding community service and assistance to disadvantaged people. Tell us a little bit more about Dr. Leroy.
KGH: Well, his professional position is as Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Admissions at Wright State's Boonshoft School of Medicine. And there he has been an inspiration to many of the students who come on board. In fact, he's actually a graduate of that medical school as well. But in addition to that, he has devoted endless hours of civic engagement in the community, whether through foundations or in the medical practice, where he still provides medical services at the East Dayton Health Clinic, which is a part of the Community Health Centers of Greater Dayton. He was also selected to be one of the people to help in determining who would receive financial assistance following the mass shootings that unfortunately occurred in the Oregon District this year. He is certainly known far and wide in our community for all of his activities and sincere engagement in what he does, and it also happens that he's serving as the president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
