Sara Lawlyes

Upon arriving in St. Louis in the fall of 2002, Sara Lawlyes began her impact on the Washington University in St. Louis and St. Louis communities. After graduating with honors from the University of Virginia in 1998, Sara joined Teach For America as a teacher in the Baltimore City Public School System. In 2002 she was awarded the honor of Baltimore City Teacher of the Year. It was Washington University’s School of Law that brought Sara to St. Louis, and she will earn her degree this spring.

At WUSTL, Sara immediately got involved; she joined the Public Service Advisory Board and was instrumental in starting the Public Service Brown Bag Panel Discussions with St. Louis community members. Sara is currently serving her second term as the Chair of the Community Service Committee through WUSTL’s Student Bar Association. Through this position, she coordinated projects such as the School of Law’s blood drives, Public Service fair, holiday giving tree and a team for Relay For Life. Sara’s summer work includes unpaid internships with the Missouri State Public Defender’s Youth Advocacy Unit and the Family Court Project at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri.

Perhaps the majority of Sara’s efforts still go to helping the Teach For America organization. She currently serves as the Regional Alumni Coordinator for the area from Springfield, IL to Kansas City, with her main emphasis on St. Louis. Sara is considering working for the Teach For America organization after graduation.

Sara received a joint nomination from Elizabeth Patton, advisor of the Public Service Advisory Board, and Ronald Koo, a fellow classmate. Ronald wrote of Sara in the nomination, “It is rare to find a person like Sara who serves just because that’s who she is… Sara is very modest and never advertises her work to others, unless she feels it will lead them to become involved too… In a sense, it seems that for Sara, public service comes before everything else – her social life, even her academics sometimes – and this dedication has inspired me to make productive use of my free time by lending a helping hand wherever I can.”