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Texas Appleseed is a national leader in helping immigrants gain greater access and fairness in the financial services industry - providing bilingual financial services, launching a Fair Exchange Pilot to promote greater transparency in pricing money transfer services, and working with banks and credit unions on ways to better serve immigrant consumers and offer competitive remittance services. Our Diversity Legal Scholars program has helped more than 200 low-income students prepare for law school. DLS scholars have attended prestigious law schools across the country, including Duke University and Howard University, as well as all nine law schools in the State of Texas. Houston Lawyer named Texas Appleseed a Houston Hero in 1999 for our commitment to promoting racial diversity. Texas Appleseed has pursued legal action to secure housing and other benefits for the 250,000 evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Texas-and is promoting systemic changes to improve the disaster relief response in the future. Texas Appleseed produced first of its kind research in 2007 on the link between school discipline programs and gateways to a School-to-Prison Pipeline marked by high dropout rates, juvenile justice involvement, and incarceration in adult prison. Over the next two years, we will expand this research and advocate for change at the state and local level. Texas Appleseed joined with Advocacy Inc. to successfully pursue legal action against the Texas Youth Commission to stop the overuse of pepper spray in youth prisons. Texas Appleseed testified before the Texas Supreme Court in 2007 on the ongoing need for reforms in Texas' foster care system-submitting its report identifying the critical need for more funding and additional foster care caseworkers.