CHARLESTON — Local law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough continued its generous ways with a $25,000 donation to support “Handle With Care."
“Handle With Care” is a group that serves the needs of at-risk children, particularly those who have dealt with an encounter with law enforcement. Its goal is to help children through community-school partnerships that specialize in caring for children that encounter traumatic situations at home.
The program is designed to let school administrators know ahead of time that a student had a law enforcement event at their home the night before, so it’s not as big of a surprise if a student’s homework is late, they’re tired or acting out in class.
In 35 West Virginia counties, children are sent to school with a confidential note when a student has been identified at the scene of a traumatic event. Kanawha County alone has seen its schools notified more than 500 times for 1,000 children from August 2013 to March 2016. “Handle With Care,” piloted by Mary C. Snow West Side Elementary School, gives a voice to children who might not otherwise speak up about what’s going on at home.
“To take the burden off of the student, by a simple note that says, ‘Handle this child with care the next day,’ it’s almost a no-brainer that this is a perfect way to help children who are having an affiliation with, unfortunately, the justice system,” Nelson Mullins attorney Melissa Foster Bird told The West Virginia Record.
The seeds for Nelson Mullins donating money to “Handle With Care” were planted in the 1980s when the firm won a case against the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice that dealt with the awful conditions for underage, incarcerated people. The firm was awarded an attorney fee on the stipulation that money would go into a foundation that over the years would be distributed to children’s justice charities.
When the foundation was set up on 1997, the firm would decide how much comes out of the foundation every year and how to distribute the funds to the various children’s just charities through all of the Nelson Mullins offices. In 2014, the entire West Virginia Nelson Mullins office participated in pro bono work and took on services such as representing animals in shelters and drafting wills for police officers and their spouses for free.
These efforts led to the firm giving the entire foundation allotment for that year ($25,000) to the West Virginia office.
While deciding which children’s just charity to donate the money to, Bird heard about the West Virginia Children’s Justice Center and the “Handle With Care” initiative being started by the state police department while watching television. At that moment, she had her answer.
“Because I was handling the distribution of the funds, when I saw that, I wanted to investigate it,” Bird said. “I attended a couple of meeting with the West Virginia 'Handle With Care' program and determined I really wanted to get the entire $25,000 to that program because I thought it was such a perfect way to do good with this money.”
Going forward, the hope is the donation will help “Handle With Care” spread the program to more counties across the state and then hopefully to more states across the country. Bird recently attended a "Handle With Care" conference and noted 30 states were represented.
“That’s fantastic because (“Handle With Care”) is such a non-controversial endeavor,” she said. “Who doesn’t want to take some [burden] off of children who have this going on in their lives? It’s fantastic being a part of this firm.”