My Nonprofit Reviews

I have been involved in directing legal aid programs for the poor for the past 45 years. In 2002, we created the Lawyers for Equal Justice to address the systemic problems encountered by the low income in our state of Hawaii. Our primary focus was on conducting class action litigation that focused on the improving the conditions of public housing, ensure homeless children could continue to attend their home schools after eviction, reversing our state's significant reduction of health care for Micronesians. Although successful in all of our litigation, attorneys fees recovered did not provide sufficient resources to continue our programs.

We reached out to the Appleseed network in 2011 and were accepted into the fold. Since that welcoming as the Appleseed's newest center we have flourished by re-branding our organization as the Hawaii Appleseed center on Law and Economic Justice and have dramatically expanded our work to include non litigation advocacy on issues involving creating affordable rental housing models, increasing food security for SNAP recipients and school children and engaging in tax advocacy to improve equities in our state's tax system ( Hawaii taxes its poor more than all but 3 other states in the nation. These initiatives have opened up the door to significantly increasing individual and law firm donations as well as local foundations who would not support litigation initiatives.

Although I have been practicing in the legal services arena for many years, I have never had the privilege of working with a group of extremely talented, creative and passionate advocates. We are blessed to have a network of centers and central office that engages in cutting edge advocacy, works so closely together on the implementation of common projects and so willing to share their expertise and guidance on issues they have successfully addressed locally. Hawaii Appleseed would not be in existence today without membership in the Appleseed network. It has broken down our isolation, gave us a chance to put a new face forward in our community as we searched for donors while providing us with colleagues across the nation that are simply exceptional.