Arms Around Arkadelphia - 2023

On June 13, 2023, several members of the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association participated in the annual Arms Around Arkadelphia service projects organized by First Baptist Church of Arkadelphia.

Readers of this blog may recall ATLA’s participation in prior years, here, here, and here. For 2023, the ATLA crew’s job was demolition of a shed, pictured below. The shed belonged to the homeowner’s father, who passed away a few years ago. The health issues of the homeowner gave us the opportunity to help.

After getting the electricity turned off, we cleaned out the inside of the shed as best we could:

removing the window was the final prep before demolition began

While we’re always willing to do whatever is needed, I’ve observed demolition is a coveted activity of ATLA members. A lot of our time is spent talking on the phone, or looking at computer screens reading cases, court rules, evidence rules, etc. Getting exercise, and working outside is always a nice change of pace. And, as if the demolition were not enough, we were instructed to burn the debris and haul the roof to the street:

THE STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY OF THE SHED HAD BEEN STRIPPED AT THIS POINT AND THE ONLY THING LEFT TO DECIDE WAS WHICH DIRECTION IT WAS GOING TO COME DOWN

Once we got the shed down, we quickly discovered separating the roofing from the plywood was the biggest challenge of the whole project due to tar melting the two together:

We finally just chainsawed the underlying supporting structures and removed the plywood sheets, burned the plywood sheets that we were able to remove the roofing, and separated the rest into a separate pile to take to the street.

SHORTLY AFTER THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN, WE DECIDED IT WAS TIME FOR LUNCH

I always look forward to lunch every year during Arms Around Arkadelphia. It is a potluck full of homemade goodness cooked by members of the First Baptist Church. It’s also a good time to catch up with longtime friends, and to make new ones. This year, we were fortunate enough to have members of a youth group join us after lunch, who proved to be a great help in finishing the project:

With the reinforcements after lunch, we were able to finish in a reasonable amount of time. Many thanks to them, and to Arms Around Arkadelphia for allowing us to participate again this year.

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, ATLA MEMBERS CALEB BAUMGARDNER OF THE BAUMGARDNER LAW FIRM IN EL DORADO; BRIAN TRUBITT OF TAYLOR KING & ASSOCIATES IN ARKADELPHIA; TAYLOR CHANEY OF CHANEY LAW FIRM, P.A. IN ARKADELPHIA; AND JAY NEAL OF TAYLOR KING & ASSOCIATES IN ARKADELPHIA.

If you’re interested in getting involved with Arms Around Arkadelphia, either with your time or financially, or both, contact me at taylor@chaneylaw.com or David McAlister at davidmcallister36@gmail.com.