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About Our Organization
SafePlace provides support, advocacy, and a safe environment to empower adults and children who have experienced domestic violence. Through leadership and education, SafePlace works collaboratively with the community to promote social change and to end violence. SafePlace provides services 24/7 that included shelter, crisis counseling, legal advocacy, housing assistance and education. All services are free of charge and confidential.
Many survivors of violence come to SafePlace with only the clothes on their backs and what they can carry. While they stay in shelter, we provide for all their basic needs, as well as assistance for achieving self sufficiency. Funds raised will be used to purchase bedding, food, medicine, underwear, bras, bus tickets, birth certificates and fees for other important documents.
In 2020, there were 453 domestic assaults reported in Woodbury County. SafePlace worked with 1500 survivors last year and 537 of them used shelter services. Those 537 adults and children are most vulnerable when it comes to accessing safe housing. They are the population most represented in the shelter. SafePlace provides shelter, support groups, and advocacy 24/7. SafePlace staff also provide legal, financial, housing or medical advocacy specifically to address the survivors' needs and obstacles. Help us restore rooms as our advocates help restore people. Over 26 years, numerous adults and children staying in shelter have made the rooms in shelter home for varying lengths of time. The rooms have been well loved and we'd like to create a safe place for those to come in the next 26 years. Please consider sponsoring a room or part of a room during this year's Big give.
Many survivors of violence come to SafePlace with only the clothes on their backs and what they can carry. While they stay in shelter, we provide for all their basic needs, as well as assistance with achieving self sufficiency. Funds raised will be used to purchase bedding, food, medicine, underwear, bras, bus tickets, birth certificates and fees for other important documents.
Our project will create Welcome Baskets for children who come into our shelter with their parent. Entering shelter any time is scary, let along during a pandemic. Many children we see have a hard time coping. They may struggle with the feelings of having a broken family or feel like they’ve lost a routine or sense of normalcy. That’s why it is so important for the children to feel welcome when they walk through our doors. One of our goals while they are in shelter is to strengthen the family bond. With these baskets, we can help reach that goal.
Our Welcome Baskets will be composed of two parts: A bathtime/shower buddy, and an activity packet. The bathtime/shower buddy will be age specific, and include a pair of slippers, a bath bomb, and either a hooded towel or shower speaker. The activity packet will include a listing of kid centered activities around Siouxland and brochures for other programs the children can utilize, such as Girls Inc of Sioux City, Boys and Girls Club, and Beyond the Bell. It will also have passes or gift certificates to the movie theater, bowling alley, laser tag, Cone Park, and the YMCA, along with bus passes for transportation. This part of the Welcome Basket is intended to provide opportunities for families to go out and do activities together. Many families entering shelter are often financially burdened and unable to afford fun activities, and the pandemic may have had a further impact in that aspect. We hope that by providing the baskets, we can alleviate some of the struggles and limitations to living through a pandemic.
We are experiencing a record breaking census in our shelter. On average, we are always housing 40 to 50 men, women and children who are fleeing violence in their homes. We have people on couches, cots in the living room, and staff offices. We are raising funds to purchase bunk beds and bedding so we can increase the number of actual beds we have available for survivors of violence and their children.
Funding will provide for the direct essential needs of the survivors CSADV services (victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.). Many individuals and families come to CSADV with only what they can grab. CSADV provides the basic essentials in addition to support and safety planning. Any money raised will support these needs.