If you are a homeless woman in crisis, perhaps even recovering from substance addiction, where would you go for help? If you live in Columbia, South Carolina, the answer would most likely be The Women’s Shelter.
Established over 30 years ago in 1976, The Women’s Shelter started off as “The Providence Home for Women” but became The Women’s Shelter in 1991. Currently, they give an average of 90 women a year the opportunity to successfully transition from an unstable and often detrimental lifestyle to one with a stable job and a roof over their head.
To engage in this transition, the women who come to the shelter on their own free will first start off living in a community house. Here, they find a stable job somewhere around the area and attend mandatory classes in the shelter after work to help them in their transition. After living in the actual shelter, the women will move to transitional housing where they have to clean and take care of the house as if it was their own.
One of items that the women in these transitional housing units need is vacuum cleaners.
Here is what The Women’s Shelter’s Program Director said about the transitional housing and the needed vacuum cleaners:
“After 10 – 12 weeks many residents will graduate from our primary program into our transitional program. Here residents have one housemate and live in one of our 19 housing units, located within 6 blocks from the primary shelter. In this program residents have more flexibility in their schedules and choices while still the ability to access continued support and resources from the shelter.
“We take a lot of pride in our housing units, as do the residents. The women maintain clean homes, which are checked on a weekly basis. Vacuums are expensive items to maintain for an extended amount of time when they are used as often as ours are utilized. We have received donated vacuums that need work or require bags that are difficult to acquire. The donation of a new bagless vacuum cleaner would be put to great use and will certainly last a lot longer than some other vacuums.”
Therefore, our goal is to raise approximately $300.00 in order to purchase TWO new bagless vacuum cleaners for The Women’s Shelter. To help us, please click on the “Donate” button below which will take you to our PayPal.com. Even a donation as small as $5 will go a long way towards helping us achieving our goal.
Update 4/13/09: We have reached our goal of $300 needed to buy The Women’s Shelter two new vacuums! Thank you so much for your generosity! Be sure to check back later to read the thank you letter from The Women’s Shelter.
However, if you are unable to give monetarily, please consider giving some of your time to the organization. The Women’s Shelter is always looking for volunteers that can work on various projects, run errands, or help with computer support in their computer lab.
If you would like to volunteer or just get in contact with someone at The Women’s Shelter, you can reach Prentiss Hallman, Program Director, at (803) 779-4706 or prentiss_hallman (AT) yahoo (DOT) com. The website of the shelter which includes their address and more contact information can be found here.
NOTE: Currently, our IRS Tax Exemption application is pending. For information on how this might affect the tax deductibility of your donation, click here.
