By Julie T. Houth
Amid an unprecedented health crisis, local San Diego lawyer, Ashley Salas, decided to help her community by volunteering at The Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank (SDFB).
Ashley grew up in San Diego and graduated from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in 2015. She’s been a staff attorney with The Utility Reform Network (TURN) since 2016. TURN advocates for safe, affordable, and reliable communications and energy utility services in front of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). She also volunteers with a local nonprofit wildlife conservation organization — Global Conservation Force, Inc. (GCF). GCF supports anti-poaching rangers and communities living near and around high-wildlife-trafficking areas; she also provides wildlife conservation education.
Ashley’s extracurricular activities are pro bono in nature. She started volunteering at the SDFB when a good friend — a travel nurse during the pandemic — put out a call for volunteers. “Apparently, many of the regular food bank volunteers were at high risk of complications from COVID-19 and the food bank needed volunteers,” she said, leading her to answer the call by volunteering a handful of times since the start of the pandemic. She usually volunteers with her friend and says that it gives them an opportunity to safely catch up while serving the community.
When asked about a typical volunteer session at the SDFB, Ashley said, “Sessions start at 6 p.m. and last about two hours. Prior to entering the warehouse, the SDFB staff provides a briefing in which they describe what type of produce the volunteers will be packaging for families. The produce includes kiwis, lemons, oranges, and onions. Inside the warehouse, volunteers sort through boxes of produce, discarding any damaged produce and bagging the good produce for later distribution to families. By the end of the two hours, the volunteers have collectively packaged thousands of pounds of produce.”
She notes that the SDFB is open to all volunteers during this time because the number of families the SDFB supports has grown exponentially. She feels that it is important for her to give back to the community, to help folks overcome poverty, and to prevent folks from going into poverty. “Helping at the food bank was a way I could provide direct support for our communities to get through the pandemic.”
Although it’s been over a year since the pandemic began, one thing is clear — we are all in this together. Ashley’s experience is an example of how lawyers across the county can respond to the needs of their local community in a non-legal fashion during and after the pandemic.
Julie T. Houth (jhouth@rgrdlaw.com) is a staff attorney at Robbins, Geller, Rudman & Dowd LLP and co-editor of San Diego Lawyer.