Our table at the festival prior to festival opening.

On Saturday, March 5, 2016, at the 10th Annual Vancouver Family Magazine Children's Festival, the Schauermann Thayer Jacobs Staples & Edwards PS law firm, as co-Sponsors of the event, reached out to the Vancouver community with an eye toward promoting safety.

From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., our attorneys and staff members met and chatted with community members and their families and gave away approximately 500 free bicycle helmets to their children.  We also raffled off three children's bicycles at the end of the day's festivities.

Our firm gave out roughly 500 bike helmets to local kids.

Having the firm sponsor and engage with the event was the brainchild of partner Scott Edwards, who has handled a number of bicycle-related cases:

Brain injuries and the risk of repeat concussions are a serious threat to a person's overall well-being. Even minor blows to the head could have serious implications to long-term health. As a firm, we couldn't think of a better way to give back to the community, while emphasizing safety, than by providing free bicycle helmets to children.”

Most of the firm's partners – Bill Thayer, Scott Edwards, and Scott Staples – and several of its staff members, including Paula Kleven, the firm's Office Administrator, and Katie Maldonado, a paralegal, were kept very busy.  Over 300 families stopped by the firm's table display and had their children and grandchildren fitted for free bike helmets.

Cayden and Christian Doss stopped by our booth to admire the bikes in our drawing.

“I think it caught a lot of people by surprise that the bike helmets were free,” Bill Thayer recalls.  “These were good bike helmets that can help kids avoid concussions from minor spills on their bikes.  We feel great about it.  One gentleman indicated to me that the timing couldn't have been better for them, as his daughter's helmet had just recently cracked and they didn't really have the extra funds on hand right away to buy her a new one.”

Many folks had questions about the type of cases Schauermann Thayer handles (the focus of the firm's practice is in handling personal injury and wrongful death cases), and there was a surprising amount of interest by folks in signing up for “mock jury” participation.  A mock jury allows our firm's attorneys to call on our fellow community members to come in on a Saturday morning to offer their opinions on fact patterns we see in our cases. This helps our attorneys and our clients better understand how a real jury may view certain facts and issues in personal injury cases. We sincerely appreciate those people being willing to contribute their time and opinions.

The Schauermann Thayer team in action at the 2016 Children's Festival.

In all, the 2016 Children's Festival was a great event. We relished the opportunity to get involved, meet many good people, and provide local children a much-needed safety measure.

(If you are interested in participating in a mock jury as describe above, please sign up here.)