Community Legal Aid Receives $15,000 for Partnership with GCC
GREENFIELD — Community Legal Aid (CLA) announced receipt of a $15,000 grant from the Franklin Fund of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts to fund a second year of its Legal Educational Partnership with Greenfield Community College (GCC).
The partnership between CLA and GCC places a CLA legal advocate on campus to provide income-eligible students with information about their legal rights, screening for government-benefits eligibility, and legal help.
“This one-stop approach to solving students’ non-academic problems by resolving legal matters that impede economic stability will help clear the path for students’ successful educational and professional careers,” said Jonathan Mannina, Community Legal Aid’s executive director.
In the project’s first year, Wendy Kane, a CLA benefits advocate with more than 30 years of experience, worked in collaboration with Rosemarie Freeland, coordinator of GCC’s Women’s Resource Center, to let students, faculty, and staff know about the project, schedule on-campus intakes to discuss legal problems, and screen students to make sure they were maximizing their income. CLA then assisted more than 30 GCC students with legal issues including domestic violence, divorce, child support, visitation, custody, eviction, government benefits, and denial of housing subsidies.
GCC President Robert Pura called the first year of the program a “huge success” and looks forward to “continuing to build and strengthen this critical and innovative partnership.”
Community Legal Aid aims to ensure fairness in the justice system by providing free legal services to more than 5,000 low-income and elderly residents of Western and Central Mass. each year. Its mission is to improve the lives of low-income and elderly people through legal assistance that protects fundamental rights, secures access to basic needs, and challenges policies and practices that harm its clients.
CLA intervenes in moments of crisis, when clients’ problems — protecting their livelihood, home, health, or family — require immediate legal solutions. It helps tenants facing wrongful eviction, survivors of domestic violence, workers denied lawful benefits, children in need of stable homes, and elders whose economic security or healthcare is in jeopardy.
CLA has full-time offices in Northampton, Pittsfield, Springfield, and Worcester, as well as satellite offices in North Adams, Greenfield, Fitchburg, Southbridge, and Milford. To learn more, visit www.communitylegal.org.
