Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 29, 1993 TAG: 9307290137
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Long
The Women's Resource Center for the New River Valley opened its new shelter last month, increasing the number of abuse victims it can serve from 14 to 21 at a time.
"It has not gone to capacity yet," said Pat Brown, the center's executive director for the past seven years.
Brown was on the board of directors for five years before that. She has been associated with the Women's Resource Center for 12 of its 16 years.
When that association started, the shelter was located near the edge of the Radford University campus. It served an average of 215 women and children a year from Montgomery, Pulaski, Giles and Floyd counties and the city of Radford, but had to turn away almost that many for lack of space and refer them to shelters in Wytheville or Roanoke.
Marie Pontias, president of the board at the time and grants administrator for Roanoke, came up with the idea to seek a Community Development Block Grant for a bigger shelter.
"As we read the guidelines, we thought we could make a case," Brown said.
Working with Radford and the New River Valley Planning District Commission, they did. They got a $365,000 grant and came up with the required $75,000 match by selling the former shelter to Radford University.
It also provided an economic boost. "It was a big construction project in the dead of the recession," Brown said.
The sole mission of the Women's Resource Center was to provide shelter for battered women and children when it started almost 16 years ago.
It has added many other services since then. Brown estimates that the center had 4,000 requests for one or more of those services last year, and that staff members worked face-to-face with at least half of those people.
The center now offers a 24-hour rape companion service, where volunteers or staff members are available to meet rape victims at one of the region's four hospitals, at police departments or in their homes at any time of day "and just provide emotional support for them, and information," Brown said.
It provides a variety of counseling services for sexual assault victims, children and other abuse victims, and handles the victim-witness program where sexual assault and domestic violence are involved.
The center coordinates its programs with those of the sexual assault prevention specialist at Radford University to meet needs of students suffering assaults, and will do the same for Virginia Tech when its sexual assault prevention specialist job is filled next month.
Center personnel make 100 to 150 educational presentations a year, "especially presentations on date rape and family violence," Brown said. Date rape is a bigger factor in the New River Valley simply because of the presence of two large universities with young people thrown together, she said.
It offers a 24-hour rape hotline (639-1123) and trains volunteers for it. The center has 12 full-time staff members and about 90 crisis hotline volunteers.
It will offer 40 hours of training starting in September for a new group of volunteers. Those interested can get more information by calling 639-9592.
All four counties and the city of Radford provide financial support for the center, as do all of the United Ways. Other funds come from state and federal grants, which must be renewed each year, and from individual and group donations. Some groups help by doing projects such as painting a room or mowing a lawn at the shelter.
Brown had been a teacher when she and her husband moved to the New River Valley where he took a job as an engineer at Lynchburg Foundry.
They had a 5-month-old son (who just graduated from Radford High School and will attend the College of William and Mary in the fall) and a daughter three years later. Brown stayed home with them during their early years.
But she did volunteer work and became active in a Junior Woman's Club, which had taken on the Women's Resource Center as one of its projects. That led to her being on the center board, and eventually to becoming director.
"It was a cause that I was committed to," she said. "It is such worthwhile work and it is really something that needs to be available in every community."
It is easier for her to leave the job pressures when she goes home, she says, than for a counselor who hears every day "the horrible things people do to each other or do to children" and who know all too well there are not always easy solutions to the problems of those with whom they work.
The problem of domestic violence cross economic lines, she said, and it is not only women from low-income situations who need help. She said recent statistics show that one out of four, and maybe three, adult women will face violence at some time in their lives.
The causes of abuse are varied, she said, ranging from there simply being more people as the population rises to the pervasive display and reporting of violence in movies and on television.
"I don't like to watch TV shows about this stuff. It's too much like working," Brown said. "I do think that it's always been around."
It may be reported more today with programs like this one being available, she said. What did victims do before such shelters existed?
"We try not to dwell on that," she said.
by CNB