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Meet Your Neighbor: Kimberly Abbott
By Callie Thomas
In the beginning, it might have sounded like a primetime legal drama: Promising young attorney passes the bar and lands a job with a mid-sized law firm outside of Boston. Two years later she moves to Vegas, takes a huge pay cut and begins a career in Legal Aid. You can almost hear the gasps of her co-workers (and would be audience), but as it turns out, it was probably the best decision Kimberly Abbott ever made.
“I went to law school knowing I wanted to do public interest work,” says Abbott. “I felt I had gotten a bit off track and began exploring other positions.” She answered an ad for Pro Bono Project Director in Las Vegas, although she applied never thinking she’d actually move. In fact, she mostly responded for the interviewing experience. But that changed when she actually met her soon-to-be co-workers. “I heard them talk with such passion about the work they did at Legal Aid. I knew I wanted the job right then and there.”
For the past six years, Kimberly has been the Pro Bono Project Director at the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada. Since 1958 the organization has been providing free legal services to low-income Southern Nevadans. The project coordinates private attorney volunteers who donate their time and talents to assist those who cannot afford representation. Upon her appointment, she immediately immersed herself in the community, met many judges and most of the Nevada Supreme Court Justices as well as bar and community leaders and prominent attorneys. Through networking, she convinces lawyers to volunteer. She also volunteers herself and is currently helping a 16 year old boy in foster care.
Helping others comes naturally for Abbott, and she has made it a point to assist other organizations including Big Brothers & Big Sisters, a crisis pregnancy center, domestic violence organizations and Habitat for Humanity. What has become one of the most powerful connections in Kimberly’s life is a non-profit called Helping Hands of Vegas Valley. She learned of the organization while pitching a group of paralegals to volunteer their time to her organization. There she met the then President of Helping Hands. “I’m not sure either of us recruited any new volunteers that night, but we learned a lot about each other’s organizations.” Kimberly ended up joining the Helping Hands board and has been a member since 2008.
Helping Hands assists seniors over the age of 60 who are unable to get around on their own through programs that ensure they have access to services that will aid them in remaining healthy and independent. “I’ve watched the difficulties my grandmother and great aunts and uncles have had as they’ve gotten older, having a harder time doing things for themselves, like getting to the doctor or buying groceries,” Kimberly said. “In my work I encounter lots of struggling seniors who are on fixed incomes with little support. Helping Hands of Vegas Valley makes sure they get to medical appointments and have enough to eat. They also give their caregivers some desperately needed breaks. The group does a lot to better the lives of seniors in our community.”
In fact, Helping Hands provides critical services to hundreds of seniors in the community each year. Last year they gave more than 3,300 rides to more than 1,000 seniors, distributed 1,800 grocery bags and gave away more than $350,000 in respite care vouchers.
Kimberly Abbott has even convinced her husband Darren and a few friends to help, and she hopes that her passion for giving back is instilled in her own daughter, who was born just last May. “Aside from surviving the first year of my daughter’s life, working full time and being a good mom, I’m proud to be a part of two great organizations which continuously remind me of the good in people and in our world, and for that I am incredibly grateful.”
