Given their work with some of the most vulnerable populations in the community, members of Matern Law Group had long expressed a strong desire to offer their support in ways that would reach beyond the courtroom. Matthew Matern established the Satyagraha Alliance in 2017 to serve as the firm’s the social responsibility arm, naming it after Gandhi’s policy of social change through nonviolent resistance – or Satyagraha, a term that literally means “holding to the truth.”
The Satyagraha Alliance
Satyagraha Alliance works with vulnerable communities in California to create change and to address social issues including poverty, homelessness, and climate change.
Our Passion For Giving Back
As its inaugural event, The Satyagraha Alliance hosted a fundraiser and community discussion forum to raise awareness of issues surrounding the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles. The event featured Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Rick Wartzman, along with the Executive Director of the San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission, Wade Trimmer.
Members of MLG & The Satyagraha Alliance helped build furniture and put together home items.
Members of MLG/Satyagraha Alliance helped build furniture and put together home items at A Sense Of Home to help move a deserving former foster youth move into their first place and give them a “sense of home” and community.
See the impact you can make!
With our donation to the Friends of the Ballona Wetlands we got to name (10) plants that were planted recently!
Thank you for supporting native plants at the Ballona Wetlands! Here’s the native plant MLG sponsored in its new home!
This little sprout is a Eriogonum parvifolium, aka Seacliff Buckwheat. Our coastal buckwheats are not the source of buckwheat pancakes, but they are a preferred food source for many hungry native insects, birds, and small mammals. Rabbits nibble the tender heart-shaped leaves in the spring, bees gather high quality nectar and pollen, and birds eat the seeds after the blooms are gone. This species is especially important to Ballona because it is vital to all stages of life of the federally endangered El Segundo Blue Butterfly. Thanks to the Friends’ restoration efforts, this little butterfly was once again spotted in the Ballona Wetlands in 2011, and we’ve been expanding habitat by planting more buckwheat ever since. Look for our El Segundo Blues flitting around the buckwheat’s white and pink flowerheads starting in June.
Read more about buckwheat here, and the El Segundo Blue Butterflies here.
Thanks to your support, this little plant is off to a great start and will help enrich the habitat at Ballona for years to come. Learn more about the ongoing restoration efforts on our website, www.ballonafriends.org.
We’re not just growing plants, we’re growing the next generation of environmental stewards.
If you value the work we do, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of Friends of Ballona Wetlands. We put each and every dollar to use restoring Ballona, advocating for better environmental policies, and bringing K-12 students to the wetlands (or, the wetlands to them via Zoom and other interactive media).
Thank you!
Feeding Homeless Women at The Downtown Women's Center
On 7/27 a great group of volunteers: Bri, Kristen, Erin, Dalia, Karim, Julia, & Sascha, represented Matern Law Group & The Satyagraha Alliance by helping prepare lunch at the Downtown Women’s Center. They served 188 women hot meals!
The Downtown Women’s Center (DWC) is the only organization in Los Angeles focused exclusively on serving and empowering women experiencing homelessness and formerly homeless
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