The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation - Legal Aid Services of Collier County

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jeffrey Ahren

Phone: (239) 298-8130

The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation awards a $20,000 grant to support Legal Aid’s Project assisting victims of Domestic Violence

Naples, Florida – The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation (“Schulze Foundation”) has furnished a $20,000 grant to Legal Aid Service of Collier County (‘LASCC’) for Fiscal Year 2021-2022 to support the Legal Services to Victims Project operated by LASCC to assist victims of domestic violence.

The Schulze Foundation has generously supported LASCC’s Legal Services to Victims Project annually since 2016. This Project will assist at least 150 victims of domestic violence in need who reside in Collier County who need the life changing free legal services LASCC provides to keep them safe, healthy, economically stable, and secure.

Last year the Legal Services to Victims Project provided critical free legal services to 152 victims of domestic violence – including 35 children – from May 1, 2020 through April 30, 2021. These free legal services include working to obtain Injunctions for Protection to keep victims and their children safe from abusers and family law assistance to help victims escape from abuse and become self-sufficient. This project also performs community outreach and education including ‘Know Your Rights’ seminars to educate at-risk populations and the agencies that serve them.

The Schulze Foundation funding provides much needed support for the non-personnel costs required to operate the project. Personnel costs for the project are covered through Community Development Block Grant federal funding by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development facilitated through Collier County’s Community and Human Services Division.

“Legal Aid is extremely grateful to The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation for its ongoing partnership with and support of our Domestic Violence Unit,” states Carol O’Callaghan, LASCC’s Managing Attorney. “Their contribution to our program helps to allow our staff to provide life changing and, sometimes, lifesaving legal assistance to victims and survivors of domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, and sexual assault in our community. We would not be able to provide our community with level of assistance we currently do without their generosity.”

The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation began its work in 2004 with the charge from its founder to support transformational change for the benefit of mankind. The Foundation has consistently directed its primary efforts and resources toward matters of importance in human & social services, education,

and health & medicine. It continues to do so today with a focus on investments that produce specific and measurable outcomes with a geographic emphasis on the Twin Cities (Minnesota) seven-county metropolitan area and Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties in Florida. In all of its activities, the foundation embraces its founder’s beliefs in the value of innovation and in improving the lives of middle- and working-class families.

Richard M. “Dick” Schulze, the founder of The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation, is also founder and Chairman emeritus of Best Buy Co., Inc., the world’s largest multi-channel, consumer-electronic retailer.

Legal Aid Service of Collier County is a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to provide high quality, free legal advice, representation and education to the residents of Collier County, according to need, so as to encourage self-sufficiency and improve the quality of life for the entire community. Legal Aid annually assists approximately 2,500 Collier County residents in need with free civil legal services. The vulnerable populations we serve include domestic violence survivors, children who have been abused, neglected, or abandoned, seniors, Veterans, disabled individuals, children with special educational needs, human trafficking victims, at risk immigrants, micro-enterprises and those seeking to start a small business, families facing eviction or foreclosure, struggling working families facing debts and credit or collection matters, victims of crimes, and those seeking benefits to meet basic needs. To learn more visit www.collierlegalaid.org. Those in need of assistance call (239) 775-4555.