SAFE HOUSE PREPARES TO OPEN NOV. 1

The new Safe House for Women has hired a shelter manager and began training volunteers in preparation for a planned Nov. 1 opening.

The Safe House for Women had anticipated opening in October, but Pat Strom, president of its board of directors, said the opening has been moved back to make sure volunteers are properly trained.

About 36 volunteers attended the center's first training session held Friday and Saturday.

Also on Friday, the board of directors selected Bettye Hargens as shelter manager.

Strom said, "She will be working this month getting the program set up, training the volunteers and putting all the preparation in place for the Nov. 1 opening of the shelter."

Hargens said: "Everything looks great. The volunteers are marvelous. We have some real dedicated people who are already asking me lots of questions."

Hargens, a resident of Jackson since 1975, is a 1991 graduate of Southeast Missouri State University with a master's degree in psychological counseling. She earned a bachelor's degree from Southeast in psychology in 1989.

She is a mother of four and a grandmother of three. This is her first experience working as a shelter manager.

"I was a victim myself," Hargens said, "so this is not entirely new to me. I've been through it myself, and now I had a lot of schooling about ways to deal with domestic violence."

She said she believes her experience as a victim will help her deal with the people she will meet. "I've been there. I know what it can be like. But I also know there is hope."

The agency has purchased a house, which is situated in a residential area in the east-central part of the city. The building will also house a new crisis-telephone hotline center.

Carlene Brown, crisis hotline and volunteer coordinator, began work Aug. 1. She has spent the past nearly two months recruiting volunteers to man the hotline and also to help at the shelter.

Brown said: "We plan to man the crisis hotline 24-hours a day and seven days a week, and it will be manned by volunteers."

The crisis hotline is funded by a $9,000 grant from the Missouri Department of Public Safety and $6,000 of the corporation's funds.

A part of the requirements of the grant is that all volunteers must complete 12 hours of training.

"We've gotten real good response from the community," Brown said. "Now it's a matter of getting the training in."

Colleen Coble, executive director for the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic Violence, trained the volunteers. "Most people think when you get hurt by a person who loves you, it's easy to leave," she said. "And that's not true."

She said the training includes information about laws and resources available to women who are abused.

Coble has been working with local organizers through the process of opening the safe house.

"There is no doubt that it's needed in any community," she said. "Fortunately Cape Girardeau is responding to those needs. I'm really excited that the shelter so close to opening."

Additional volunteers are needed for the hotline and other safe house duties. Strom said volunteers are especially needed during daytime hours. For more information about volunteering, call 334-6420.

The non-profit Safe House for Women Inc., was created last year by a group of community leaders and other concerned people after the WISER Inc., safe house on Linden Street was forced to close.

Strom said that community support of the new agency has been good so far, but continued support is needed to make the shelter a success.

"Domestic violence shelters have a hand-to-mouth existence financially," Strom said. "We are always in need of volunteer labor and financial support.

"If the community will just continue the spirit it has shown this past year, we will be successful. We will be able to help these women and children. It's a service that is desperately needed."