{"id":262018,"date":"2026-04-23T01:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/262018\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T01:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:33:14","slug":"coastal-bend-women-lawyers-association-hosts-luncheon-highlights-scholarship-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/262018\/","title":{"rendered":"Coastal Bend Women Lawyers Association hosts luncheon, highlights scholarship impact"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Annual luncheon supports local women in higher education and recognizes legal advocacy leader.<\/p>\n<p>CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 The Coastal Bend Women Lawyers Association is highlighting its annual spring luncheon on Wednesday, to keep raising scholarship funds for local women pursuing higher education.<\/p>\n<p>The organization&#8217;s president, Alexandria Monroe, said the group is the only women&#8217;s bar association in the Coastal Bend and that the event supports future students.<\/p>\n<p>Monroe said, &#8220;We are very passionate about our scholarships and we want to give as many women the opportunity to achieve their goals and their dreams.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Each year, the luncheon honors a woman of distinction. This year&#8217;s honoree is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/innocencetexas.org\/cases\/anna-vasquez-2\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anna Vasquez<\/a>, Director of Outreach and Education with the Texas Innocence Project and one of the &#8220;San Antonio Four.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Their case became the focus of the film,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.southwestofsalem.com\/about-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Southwest of Salem.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>After spending over a decade in prison for a crime she did not commit, Ms. Vasquez now advocates for prison reform and against wrongful conviction with the Innocence Project of Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>3News evening anchor Leslie Adami moderated the Q&amp;A with Vasquez who discussed everything from life before and during incarceration, her exoneration, and how her work today is helping those wrongly convicted in Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Monroe said the event not only recognizes community leaders, but also helps fund scholarships for Coastal Bend women attending local colleges or Texas law schools.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0&#8220;This event is extremely important for our organization because it helps fund the future of the Coastal Bend,&#8221; adds Monroe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This year&#8217;s honoree, Ana Vasquez, was wrongfully imprisoned for more than 14 years before being exonerated in 2016. She now works in legal advocacy and speaks about her experience.<\/p>\n<p>Monroe says, &#8220;It&#8217;s important to get their story out because if we don&#8217;t learn from our history, we&#8217;re just bound to repeat it.&#8221; She adds that scholarship support varies each year but continues to make a significant impact on recipients who might not otherwise be able to attend college.<\/p>\n<p>Donations for the scholarship fund can be made through the Coastal Bend Community Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Annual luncheon supports local women in higher education and recognizes legal advocacy leader. CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-262018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}