Hollister
– Volunteers and staff alike are making the final preparations
for the dedication of Emmaus House, the battered women’s and
children’s shelter that the community has been working toward for
more than 10 years.
Hollister – Volunteers and staff alike are making the final preparations for the dedication of Emmaus House, the battered women’s and children’s shelter that the community has been working toward for more than 10 years.
“We are extremely excited,” said Dale Yarmouth, Emmaus House project manager. “We’re happy that the community will finally be able to have this shelter.”
The shelter has been in the works since 1995, when a number of community leaders realized that women and children who were victims of domestic abuse had to flee the county in order to find safe haven. Their children would have to leave school; they would have to seek medical treatment from doctors they had never met. A prolonged absence could even cost women their jobs.
“This is great; any extra resources we can get are great,” said San Benito County Sheriff’s Lt. Roy Iler, who is also on the shelter’s board of directors. “In the past we’ve just been able to refer them (victims of domestic abuse) to services after the fact or contact a family member if there was an immediate need for them to move, but unfortunately a lot of these women don’t have relatives in the area.”
Getting the project off the ground has been slow going, but the pace picked up earlier in the year when Yarmouth was hired as project director. The value of the labor, materials, time and items donated from the community is a staggering sum to calculate, according to Yarmouth, but the house itself is valued at more than $1 million. Now much of the shelter’s staff has been hired and only a few minor steps need to be taken before it is ready to open. A formal dedication and open house will be held this Sunday as a chance for the community at large to see the fruits of 10 years of labor.
“The shelter will be open before Thanksgiving,” Yar-mouth said. “And we’ll be announcing the actual date at the dedication.”
When the shelter does open, Yarmouth and his staff do not plan on operating at full capacity, focusing instead on serving a handful of families and then welcoming more within a few months.
“We’ve already had phone calls from women who need our services,” Yarmouth said. “Right now they’re at other shelters or with churches, but we know our services are needed.”
The shelter is equipped to house approximately 10 families, or roughly 35 children and their mothers.
“I think a lot of the women will be receptive to it,” Iler said. “We get quite a few domestic abuse calls, and there’s probably four incidents that don’t get reported for every call we get, because when we talk to them we always ask, ‘Has this gone on before?’ and they usually say, ‘Yeah, he’s hit me three or four times.'”
In the meantime, staff and volunteers are working to ready the house for company.
“We’re putting together the last of the bedroom furniture, putting mattress pads on all the beds, doing a lot of organizing and sorting blankets,” Yarmouth said. “We’ve also had to do some last-minute, minor electrical work.”
Volunteers have been putting together Build-A-Bears for children who come through the shelter and local Brownie troop 3469 used money from their cookie sales to buy outdoor toys like tricycles for the shelter’s younger inhabitants.
“That was really neat,” Yarmouth said. “They all came out to visit us and the dads put the toys together.”
The shelter is actively seeking volunteers not only to help get the shelter ready for the grand opening, but also who would be interested in volunteering after the center is up and running.
“We need people who can help our staff, read to the children, organize the kitchen, maybe even show the women how to cook or help with some other skill,” Yarmouth said. “There’s opportunities for just about everything you could want to do.”
The shelter is also looking to hire a few additional full- or part-time staff members, depending on their area of expertise and how many women and children actually make use of the center.
“We’re hoping we can bring somebody on board who has experience with domestic abuse, maybe somebody who can take up an advocacy position,” Yarmouth said.
A few of the items the shelter is in need of include pots, pans and other heavy cooking equipment, as well as outdoor furniture for the backyard. Anybody who might be able to donate these items or who is interested in volunteering is encouraged to call 636-7224.
Danielle Smith covers education for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected].
