The Deb Elkins Volunteer of the Year Award commemorates Deb Elkins, who devotedly volunteered as a reading tutor with the Lawyers for Literacy program for 25 years. Deb spent 34 years as a paralegal with Michael McGrath and another 25 years with Mesch, Clark, and Rothschild where she always served her clients and confidants well.The Pima County Bar Foundation created the award in 2022 to honor Deb and to recognize outstanding individuals who volunteer with any of PCBF's diverse programs that depend on volunteer efforts for their success. Award recipients can be lawyer or non-lawyer PCBA members who demonstrate commitment, service, creativity, and leadership in their volunteer roles.

 

PCBF is very pleased to present its 2024 Deb Elkin Award to Beth Smith. Beth's involvement with PCBF's guardian and conservator presentations began in June 2014 when she, together with attorneys Ryan Thomsen and Robert Fleming and UA law professor Kenney Hegland, conceived a plan to address the acute need for pro bono assistance to community members seeking guardianship for loved ones. They began with presentations to presentations to unrepresented petitioners at Pima Council on Aging for the general community and at Community Partnership of Southern Arizona for mental health professionals and providers. 

 

When those presentations stimulated a demand for further guardian and conservatorship assistance, PCBA took the program under its wing and created a Guardian/Conservator (G/C) Forms Committee to create legal forms and instructions that were easier to understand and use. Beth Smith, with Robert Fleming, gave the first adult G/C presentation for PCBA in October 2015. The presentations have been held regularly since then and continue as a program of the PCBF. And Beth Smith is still involved!

 

Beth's invaluable and continuing contributions to PCBF's community G/C programs deserve special recognition. Congratulations, and many thanks, to Beth Smith, the 2024 Deb Elkins Volunteer of the Year!