New SAFE-T grants take sting out of funding hit
By LYNDA STRINGER - Tribune City Editor
Thursday, October 9, 2008 10:40 AM CDT
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| Angela McMillian, manager of the SAFE-T resale store in Mount Pleasant, helps a customer with her purchase. TRIBUNE photo by Lynda Stringer |
Shelter Agencies for Families in East Texas, still nursing its wounds from a huge funding hit last month, has received word they've been awarded two grants that will help fill the void. The agency, which serves Titus, Camp, Franklin, Morris and Hopkins counties providing services and shelter to victims of domestic abuse, has been awarded a $38,000 grant from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs and a $20,000 grant from the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation. Carol Gresham, SAFE-T director, said the MKACF grant will go partly toward the agency's overall budget. It will also go into a client fund.
It will pay for rent or deposits to help people get into housing quicker as well as things such gas vouchers, medicines and clothing, Gresham said.
"They need gas to look for work, to get to work or look for housing," she said. "Some women get out of the hospital with a prescription for pain. They might have a broken arm or leg or jaw. We try to stay away from pain medication, but in that case, we would fill a prescription for about a week."
The women receive vouchers for clothing from the agency's resale stores, but this grant will pay for items that aren't available, such the right size shoes or undergarments that have to be purchased at a department store.
"It's a lot of little things, so it doesn't seem like a lot, but it really is when you have to start spending money on that," Gresham said.
The TDHCA grant is a reimbursement fund that will be split between the client fund and shelter operations.
Of the total amount, $22,000 will pay for staff, utilities and other bills at the agency's shelter, located in Mount Pleasant, while $16,000 will go directly to the clients to pay for things like rent and utilities.
"The idea is to keep people out homelessness," Gresham said.
The agency's services, which also include several domestic violence prevention programs, are vital to ending the cycle of abuse.
According to statistics from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, in Texas, one in three women are victims of domestic violence – or intimate partner violence – and in 2006 a woman was killed as a result of domestic violence in the state every three days.
Last year, SAFE-T helped 996 victims of domestic violence or sexual assault.
Those numbers included 640 women, 53 men and 303 children. The SAFE-T Crisis Center received 1,066 calls to its hotline number. The Crisis Center provided shelter for 128 women and 144 children last year.
"The problem of domestic violence in Mount Pleasant and the surrounding counties isn't going away and neither is the need for funding," Gresham said. "Programs to help battered women and their children require a lot of resources."
In September, the agency found out that a grant from the Victims of Crime Act fund had been cut from $133,000 last year to $54,836 this year, a loss of more than $78,000. They also expect to be cut out of all funding from the Violence Against Women Act funds this year – more than $60,000 - which would give them a total funding loss of more than $140,000 from the two grants they've depended on for many years.
While the new grants will soften the blow of losing those funds, SAFE-T is having to shift gears in its plan to keep the agency operating, providing needed services and expanding its programs.
Fundraising and revenue from its resale stores is the key.
They're planning several major fundraisers, including an event they've titled "Taste of the Lake Country" planned for April 4 at the Mount Pleasant Civic Center.
"There will be vendors from all over the area and all the lakes and they will have a taste of all their foods. There will also be vendors selling things like Pampered Chef, anything to do with food, wine or drink, grills, you name it," said Rachelle McGonagill, SAFE-T assistant executive director.
She also has a motorcycle run called Ride for a Child in the works for sometime next spring and is considering a golf tournament and another art auction.
The agency's overall annual budget, depending on grant money, averages from $550,000 to $750,000.
While the fundraisers will help fill in some of the gaps, SAFE-T is really banking on the resale shops to prop them up.
"The stores are going to be the solid financial backbone of the agency and the fundraisers will be the extra money to supplement programs," Gresham said. "I'm hoping for the long term that the thrift stores will actually replace federal funds. That's my dream. That's what we're going for."
The agency already has two thrift stores, one in Mount Pleasant and one in Sulphur Springs and a third is expected to be open by Wednesday in Paris. The Mount Pleasant resale store grossed $147,000 last year with $60,000 in expenses.
"Paris is a larger population than Mount Pleasant and the store that we rented up there is about the same size as the Mount Pleasant store so if we can make the same amount of money up there then we're not going to be as worried as about the federal funds," Gresham said.
Gresham said the layoffs they had to make have caused the rest of staff to work even harder to take up the slack and they are in need of volunteers. But, while they are pinching their pennies, she said they are doing OK.
"We're managing, we're OK, clients aren't hurting yet," she said. "Things are happening, but we do need to plan for the future because if the federal monies disappear, I don't want to ever have to say, ‘I'm sorry, but we have to shut this program down.'"
