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On September 17, 2011 about 70 Valpo Law students gave up their Saturday morning outlining session (read: Saturday morning cartoons) to volunteer for United Way’s annual Day of Caring. This year Valpo Law worked at Christian Haven in Wheatfield, IN. Christian Haven provides a variety of residential, day treatment, and community based therapeutic programs and services for boys and girls, ages 6-18. One of Christian Haven’s new and popular treatment programs is Equine Therepy. Christian Haven recently built an indoor arena for residents to work with the horses.

The official Day of Caring runs from 9 A.M. until 12:00 P.M. The projects Christian Haven provided the law students included clearing fallen trees from a challenge course, painting a back stop fence, staining the tack shop room, spreading mulch, cleaning the floor in a cooler, clearing out a garage, washing windows, and staining 225 boards of wains coating for phase 2 of the horse arena.

The Student Bar Association organized a lunch with Mike Peterman, Christian Haven’s volunteer coordinator, in order to facilitate students staying later into the afternoon to complete the projects. A few of Christian Haven’s residents were invited to join the law students at the lunch and worked with the law students on the projects. More than half of the 70 volunteers stayed into the afternoon and were able to complete all but one of the larger projects for Christian Haven.

However, the story does not end there. The following saturday a small group of law students gave up another morning of studying in order to volunteer more time at Christian Haven. These students were Sonny Hodgins (3L), Adam Taylor (3L), Shelly Teems (3L), Jessica Whittamore (3L), John Hutchinson (2L), Lakshmi Jayanthi (1L), and Tim Skerrett (Valpo Undergrad). This smaller team cleaned two of the independent living apartments at Christian Haven. Christian Haven provides these apartments to older children about to leave the program in order to teach them how to live on their own.

The Student Bar Association and Christian Haven thanks all the students who gave up whatever time and energy they could to give back to the community. Your good work does not go unnoticed. If you are interested in volunteering at Christian Haven or organizing other community service projects please contact the Student Bar Association Special Events Coordinator Jessica Whittamore at jessica.whittamore@valpo.edu.