FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Amy Bonderoff, Director, Development & Communications, VOLS
abonderoff@volsprobono.org, 347-521-5723
VOLUNTEERS OF LEGAL SERVICE (VOLS) ESTABLISHES THE CHARLES LAWRENCE KEITH & CLARA MILLER GENDER-JUSTICE FUND TO HELP CLOSE THE ACCESS TO JUSTICE GAP FOR WOMEN & GIRLS IN NEW YORK CITY
September 28, 2023, New York, NY – Volunteers of Legal Service (VOLS) is the proud recipient of a $500,000 grant from the Charles Lawrence Keith & Clara Miller Foundation to establish the Charles Lawrence Keith & Clara Miller Gender-Justice Fund (Keith-Miller Gender-Justice Fund). The Fund will provide unprecedented year-over-year support to VOLS’ initiatives across project areas that help close the access to justice gap for women and girls in New York City.
The Keith-Miller Gender-Justice Fund will support access to justice for women and girls across VOLS’ civil legal project areas. This includes helping immigrant girls and young women seeking safety, education, and work authorization; older adult women and their caregivers making key end-of-life decisions; incarcerated mothers enforcing family law rights; women microentrepreneurs forming and growing small businesses; girls in school and hospital-based settings needing access to education, housing, and other rights. This Fund also provides an opportunity for VOLS to create additional programming for low-income women and girls in New York City, as needed, to ensure their human rights are not violated and they obtain equal access to justice and opportunity.
Establishment of the Keith-Miller Gender-Justice Fund acknowledges the decades-long relationship between the Foundation and VOLS and is deeply connected to Mr. Charles Lawrence Keith’s life story and to the charitable purposes and priorities of the Foundation.
“Our Founder, Charles Lawrence ‘Charlie’ Keith, made it his life’s mission, and the mission of the Foundation he established, to fight human oppression. Because the missions of our Foundation and VOLS are so aligned, we have proudly funded the work of VOLS for more than twenty years. When our Foundation decided to ‘sunset,’ it gave us the opportunity to support VOLS’ work in an even more substantive way. That is when we decided to establish the ‘Charles Lawrence Keith & Clara Miller Gender-Justice Fund to fight the access to justice gap for vulnerable women and girls in New York City’.” said Brian O’Dwyer, President of the Board, Charles Lawrence Keith & Clara Miller Foundation.
“VOLS is grateful to the Trustees of the Charles Lawrence Keith & Clara Miller Foundation for recognizing VOLS’ work to help women and girls in New York City access high-quality, free civil legal services.” said Abja Midha, VOLS Executive Director “Women face gender-based hurdles to securing both access to justice and justice itself. In New York City, households where women are the primary income earner – and primarily those with children – are the most economically precarious. Free legal services can make a tremendous difference in helping women and girls find security and opportunity, and we are proud to have the Keith-Miller Gender-Justice Fund focused on serving this population.”
VOLS currently benefits women and girls every year through a variety of programs, some specialized for these populations, including VOLS Senior Women’s Empowerment Initiative and VOLS Incarcerated Mothers Project, the only one of its kind in New York State. In addition, last year, two-thirds of the VOLS Microenterprise Project Services small business clients identified as women and 60% of VOLS Immigration Project clients as a young immigrant women or girls, including the majority of our Special Immigrant Juvenile Status clients and asylum clients. The Keith-Miller Gender-Justice Fund will help ensure VOLS can sustain and increase our ability to provide specialized legal support for these populations, who face extra challenges because of their gender.