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Womanshelter celebrates 25 yearsBy G. Michael Dobbs
Managing Editor
An organization that has changed the lives of over 4,500 area residents is marking its 25th anniversary on Nov. 10 at 6 p.m.
Womanshelter/Compaeras, the domestic violence shelter that serves women and their children from throughout Hampden County, will be celebrating its quarter-century of service with a gala at the Delaney House in Holyoke.
Proceeds from the dinner and silent auction that night will benefit the programs the shelter provides the families it protects.
Besides the secure and secret shelter and a 24-hour abuse hotline, Womanshelter/Compaeras offers individual counseling; support groups in English/Spanish; medical, financial & housing advocacy; in-court legal advocates; comprehensive teen services; child advocacy and programming and community education.
Womanshelter/Compaeras provides all of the basic needs a woman and her children might require when leaving an abusive situation, Executive Director Karen Cavanaugh explained. Food, clothing, toiletries, toys and other items are provided to those who need them.
"We're pretty unusual in that way in that we're dealing with the entire scope of needs that families face," she said.
Director of Development Melinda Thomas added, that the shelter makes connections to other social services agencies to help women make a transition from the shelter at the right time.
"We're an incredibly busy organization given the number of services we provide," Cavanaugh said.
The shelter has 17 full and part-time staff members and 20 active volunteers, whom Cavanaugh described as "extremely important" to the success of the shelter's mission.
Some domestic violence shelters do not want to accept women from the home community because of the security issues, Cavanaugh said.
Womanshelter/Compaeras' shelter is in an undisclosed location, but accepting local women whose abusers might be trying to find them does "make things more complicated," she admitted.
Cavanaugh explained to Reminder Publications that the shelter grew out of the efforts of a group of people in Holyoke who recognized the need. One of those people, Jane Sanders, had worked for a shelter in Springfield and was receiving many phone calls for help from women in Holyoke. Using Community Development Block Grant funding from the city of Holyoke as seed money, the shelter incorporated on Nov. 18, 1980.
Funding remains a critical issue and Cavanaugh said that 84 percent of the money received by the shelter goes towards funding services for the women and their families. With the decline in state aid and the fact that western Massachusetts has fewer private foundations that eastern Massachusetts, raising the money needed is a concern, she added.
"In this day and age, level funding is a cut," she said.
The need for the shelter's services is growing, though. Cavanaugh explained that while national FBI statistics on domestic violence may be declining somewhat, the calls to Womanshelter/Compaeras are increasing.
Cavanaugh attributes the increase to the "conscious effort on our part to do outreach." More and more women are learning of the assistance provided by Womanshelter/Compaeras, she said.
Domestic violence, she added, remains a problem that cuts across lines of age, race and economic status.
Tickets to the gala are $75 each and are tax deductible. The deadline is Oct. 28 and checks made out to Womanshelter/Compaeras can be sent to Post Office Box 1099, Holyoke, MA 01040. Entertainment will be provided by Zo Darrow and the Fiddleheads and the Salsa Kids.
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