DONATION: The Women's Center

I've been working on new ways to provide and encourage support for local community groups. As part of this effort, I've decided to start donating money. Given my low income and growing debt, I don't have much to give. But I've decided that as long as I have income, however little, the nonprofit organizations that do so much for this community will have income too.

My first donation is going to the Women's Center:

http://www.thewomensctr.org/

The Women's Center provides many helpful services to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. They have a 24-hour crisis hotline (618-529-2324); emergency shelter; food, supplies, and transportation; individual and group support and counseling; information, referrals, and education; legal, medical, and personal advocacy. Basically, if you are a survivor of domestic abuse and/or sexual assault, they will find a way to help you with what you need.

How are they able to do all of these great things? First of all, the staff and volunteers are the ones who make it all possible. Second, their budget comes from a mix of city funding, state funding, and donations made by people like you.

If you're fortunate enough to have money in your pocket after you've paid for food, shelter, utilities, and so on, I'd like you to consider making a donation to the Women's Center. They do some of their own fundraisers like the Taste of Chocolate, and those exciting events help to keep the center going too. But they accept donations year-round from people like you who care about the work that they do. You can even make a donation in someone else's name and the Women's Center will send them a nice card for their birthday or other special occasion.

Here's the link to their donation page:

http://www.thewomensctr.org/p/donations.php

If you don't have any money, you may be able to help them with some of the supplies on their Needs List. You can also volunteer your time in a variety of ways:

http://www.thewomensctr.org/p/volunteers.php

If nothing else, you can help by letting people know about their services and participating in events like Take Back The Night.

This issue is important to me because I know far too many women and men who are survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. The people at the Women's Center work hard every day to help these survivors and do whatever they can to raise awareness and reduce the rates of violence and assault. Personally, I think that they deserve ten times the funding that they get for the work that they do. Until that happens, each of us can do our part to support them, whether that means making a donation, or volunteering, or simply being aware of the work they do and spreading awareness about it in your own way.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for any support that you can send their way!