Blues, Booze, and Barbeque

1. Blues, Booze, and Barbeque My Shepherd Alliance Internship Arkansas 2010 Legal Aid of Arkansas By: Arienne Jones

2. Legal Aid of Arkansas The mission of Legal Aid of Arkansas is to provide free legal services to low-income Arkansans in non-criminal cases, ranging from family to consumer and housing to individual rights cases. Its vision is to improve the lives of low-income Arkansans by championing equal access to justice for all, regardless of economic or social circumstances.

3. Legal Aid Staff Standing: Faye Reed, Managing Attorney; Sergio Barron, Staff Attorney, Robert Kinchen, Senior Attorney; Sitting: Katheenya Mills, Legal Secretary

4. My Role • Title: Legal Intern • Primary Duties: • Research • Complete client questionnaires • Assist with preparations for the annual Back to School Bash • Attend Court

5. My Role…Continued • Research: • The majority of my research dealt with Dependency and Neglect cases, as Ms. Reed, the managing attorney, represents the parent involved in said cases • Court: • Court was…interesting, to say the least. I primarily shadowed Ms. Reed to court, as my interest lay in Dependency andNeglect cases. In the Circuit Court of Phillips County, I saw some of the most baffling, heart wrenching, and simply interesting things ever. [Details to come.]

6. My Role…Again • Client Questionnaires: • Typically, I contacted clients and asked them follow-up questions that would accompany their application for assistance. After this was completed, the attorneys would determine whether the case would be accepted for representation • Back to School Bash: • For the last four years, Legal Aid has had a Back to School event, in which people throughout Phillips, Lee, Monroe, and St. Francis counties are able to come to a selected venue and receive school supplies for their children, while also learning about the services that Legal Aid offers. In order to assist with the event, I created a flyer advertising the event, helped find a location for the event in Lee County, completed a grant application for funds for the bash, and mailed letters to potential donors

7. In the Circuit Court of Phillips County… • Court was an eye-opener, to say the least. Most of the cases that I heard in court dealt with dependency and neglect, which basically means cases that deal with instances in which children are removed from their homes due to alleged abuse or neglect of some type.

8. In the Circuit Court of Phillips County… • Here, within the walls of the Phillips County courthouse, I saw how poverty has the ability to encompass and, in some instances, destroy, a family. Many of the cases that I sat through dealt with dependency and neglect and, unfortunately, not many of them ended on happy notes. Too often, many parents lost their parental rights or were dangerously close to having them terminated. Though the circumstances of some cases were unavoidable, many people were the victims of the Delta and the vast poverty that encases the area.

9. Poverty…Through My Eyes Poverty—the look of it, growing up in the less affluent parts of town—is nothing new to me. Thus, I wasn’t really expecting to have as severe a culture shock as some may have expected me—or any intern participating in the program—to have. Yet, I did. For, when I thought of poverty and related it to the area in which I would be living and working, I thought of the areas in which I had grown up. However, when I arrived in Marvell (where I lived) and, later, Helena (where I worked), I got a glimpse into a new type of poverty.

10. The Oddest Combination When I thought of the poverty in which I would be immersed, I thought of the type of poverty with which I was personally familiar, the type of poverty that surrounds Spelman and the Atlanta University Center. However, the poverty in the Arkansas Delta is vastly different. It’s the oddest fusion of urban and rural poverty, and from that blend is created Delta poverty.

11. Delta Poverty The towns in the Delta are suffering extensively, as is depicted in the pictures to the right. These were taken in downtown Helena, an area that once thrived, but which has now become something of a ghost town.

12. Delta Livin’

13. Meet the Marvell Nine L to R: Alyshia, Lauren, Tiernan, Ryan, Jason, Patrick, Arienne, Shaun, Olivia

14. Our Humble Abodes 609A Ward St. Marvell, AR 72366 611 Ward St. Marvell, AR 72366

15. Adventures on Ward St. So…our living arrangements were interesting, to say the least. Described in the next few slides are some of the things that happened to us on Ward St. Though it wasn’t necessarily funny at the time, as the weeks progressed, we were able to look back on the events and laugh and know that we’d have stories to tell for ages.

16. Peeping Tom …except our Peeping Tom was a lovely—in that southern sarcastic voice—man who decided that it would be just fine for him to stand on our trash can and look through our bedroom window at 1 a.m…really now? The trash can? Over the next few weeks, it evolved from a really scary incident into a ridiculously funny joke.

17. The Marvels of Plumbing in Marvell Ah. Plumbing. When we first got to Arkansas, the house (611 Ward St.) was uninhabitable because a pipe had recently burst. Some days later, the pipe was fixed, yet we didn’t have hot water and, thus, couldn’t shower there. Some days later, that was fixed. And we all lived in peace and harmony…ha! Some weeks later, there was a drainage problem that resulted in the kitchen sink making the bathroom sink clog. When Patrick went to unclog the bathroom sink…it fell off of the wall! These are the memories and quirks of the summer that make the story so much more fun to tell.

18. The Marvell Nine… After Hours

19. Conclusions…About Poverty Poverty is…poverty. It has a different look, a different feel, a different…attitude that is all dependent upon where one is located. It is also something that cannot be defined. One has to live poverty, on any level (for there are many different levels of poverty) in order to truly know what it is. There is no set way in which to describe what poverty is or is not, what it looks like, what it feels like. It is, in my opinion, something that is as abstract as happiness, something that does not need, and cannot have, a definition. I feel that, despite the effort that one may put into it, trying to define and dissect poverty is as impossible as trying to catch a star from the sky. So, did I learn anything about poverty? Indeed, I did. I learned that poverty isn’t something that can be taught. It’s something thathas to be experienced.

20. Conclusions…About the Delta Sigh. The Delta is an amazing place. It’s filled with this natural beauty that is breathtaking. Note: the background for this presentation is an actual picture of a sunflower that was taken in a field of sunflowers right inside the Marvell city limits. The Delta just has this rich history and this deep soul that no amount of time or lack of money can diminish. Though I worked in a small town and lived in an even smaller one, my experience was an unforgettable one. I, who tries (or tried) to stay away from any city smaller than my city of 200,000 people, went to the Arkansas Delta and absolutely fell in love—with the scenery, with the people, with the major cities that were only one to two hours away. I think that people hear about the Delta, hear about the all of the negative issues with which the area is faced, and just write off the entire area as slowly wasting away. However, if one just gave the area a chance, just looked beyond the dilapidated buildings and everything else that screams of a less economically thriving area…if one merely looked deeper, one would be able to see, to feel the beauty of the Delta. Yes, you live simpler and slower in the Delta, but sometimes we need that. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the Delta is an experience and that, if one merely opens themselves to new surroundings, one will discover so much about this beautiful area and themselves. I know I did.

21. “You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” ~Alan Alda