Office of External Communications

Houston, TX 77204-5017 Fax: 713.743.8199

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 9, 2004

Contact: Angie Joe
713.743.8153 (office)
713.617.7138 (pager)
ajoe@uh.edu

Editor’s Note: For a photo, go to: http://www.uh.edu/admin/media/nr/2004/12dec/120704lawctrwrap.html.

WRAPPING UP CHRISTMAS: UH LAW CENTER DONATES TOYS
Law Students’ Gift Drive Benefits Disadvantaged Children

HOUSTON, Dec. 9, 2004 – Children from Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church and The Children’s Assessment Center will receive a special delivery this holiday season thanks to the elves of the University of Houston Center for Consumer Law and several law student organizations. Volunteers came together recently to raise money to purchase toys for disadvantaged children.

The UH Law Center’s holiday cheer team has been working with the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church and The Children’s Assessment Center for 15 years. Professor Richard Alderman, director of the Center for Consumer Law and the Dwight Olds Chair in Law, directs the project.

Volunteers collected $3,500 from UH Law Center students, faculty and staff through a raffle and donations. Approximately 100 people went shopping for more than 200 gifts then wrapped them.

The beneficiary organizations will give the toys to the children on Christmas day.

The toy drive has a special significance to the Law Center, according to Alderman. “Most law students recognize that part of being a lawyer is serving your community,” he said. “This is just a small way of helping the many underprivileged children in Houston.”

For more information about the Center for Consumer Law, go to http://www.law.uh.edu/peopleslaw/.

About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate, civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and service with more than 35,000 students.

For more information about UH visit the university’s ‘Newsroom’ at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.