Week 1 Summary

Whew! The end of it all...well, the first week at least and I am certifiably...exhausted. Nevertheless, I (we) will keep pushing strong until the end of the month. The date circled on my calendar is April 1st. D-day. We will be done, done, and done.

A brief recap of the Week 1 numbers:
Intake: 16
Sent Applications: 10

The model that we're implementing is not a high volume one, but rather is designed to have each student shepherd one or two applications from "Intake to Immigration". This is unlike the models that mass produce applications and send them out the door. Our attorneys are actually taking on these applicants as clients, as opposed to helping them fill out the forms and send them in on their own. Essentially, we're professionally and emotionally invested...

Related...we learned that our clinic is at the forefront of the Haitian TPS effort. Though we are a small group with limited resources, we have been able to push fee waivers through successfully. Immigration reported that we have 30 (10%) of all the approved fee waivers. In other words, immigration has only granted 300 fee waivers NATIONWIDE, and our clinic has 10% of them. We only have sent out about 75 total applications.

Whatever we're doing, we're definitely doing it right...

So this past week went well. We were able to conduct two intake sessions and one of which was actually in Little Haiti. We've refined our approach and have decided that being in Little Haiti is better than not being there. To this end, we've secured a couple locations in Little Haiti to hold intake this week in addition to Jackson Hospital.

Friday morning I had to drive 25 miles up north to go and do a radio advertisement on Hot 105. In the flurry of emails I blasted to various groups and organizations, the dj responsed with an affirmative, "yes, I'd like to be able to help." And with that, a date was set and I trekked to Hollywood, FL. The guy was cool and it only took a few minutes. The radio ad is supposed to air Monday and Tuesday. We'll see if it yields results.

We hit the streets again this afternoon. We were talking to everyone - dodging traffic across a four lane thoroughfare and even got handed a flyer by a Haitian church group. Then we had brainflash - let's go to the Church and advertise there. When we got there, service had not yet started, so we weren't able to do much, but Melissa went back this evening to talk to the Priest. We'll see how it goes.

Everything is pretty much set for the arrival of Memphis Law and San Francisco Law. We're locked on to begin at 9 am sharp. I have to get going because my spring break hasn't yet started and I still have to read for Civ Pro II.

-fdh