MOUNT VERNON — The charitable organization Faiths United For Families was founded to assist homeless abused women and children in becoming self-sufficient by providing them with the practical help they need to improve their lives.
Based at Faith Lutheran Church and originated by church member Linda Aikman, Faiths United rents two storage units that contain donated kitchen appliances, bed frames and mattresses, housewares, curtains, furniture, bedding, teddy bears and more. When women are referred by New Directions domestic violence shelter or another social services agency, they can go to the storage site and select what they need to set up a new home and build a new life.
Aikman knows how difficult creating a new life can be.
“I was a battered woman for 30 years,” she said, “and was finally able to escape. You don’t go into the shelter with anything other than the diapers and your purse. And if you don’t go back [to the man] within a day, he’ll burn everything you own and everything that belongs to the children. That’s why these women need everything.
“I was in a New Directions support group for a year. That exposed me to the needs. When I got back on my feet, I talked to my counselor and asked what I could do. So I approached the head of our congregation, who invited me to meet with the church council. That was in March 2006.”
The first task was to rent a storage unit and put the word out that clean, used, donated items would be accepted. Since then, a second unit has been rented, and the inventory has turned over many times. Volunteers haul and deliver items and Faith Lutheran pays the storage unit rent. A member of Gay Street United Methodist Church serves on the Faiths United board of directors, and First Congregational Church and others have made monetary contributions.
“Do you know how far we can make that money stretch?” asked Aikman. “Every church in town does something [for people], and many churches do a lot. We know very well there are people in other churches who have a heart for helping these women.”
Aikman said many difficulties and hardships are experienced in rebuilding a life after terrible trauma, but healing proceeds more smoothly when victims have a safe, pleasant home in which to live.
New Directions — which can house just two families — cannot always assist all the women who need help. Court Advocate Sheryl Landis, the New Directions representative on the Faiths United board, said that when the shelter is full, women are referred to a shelter in another county or housed in a local motel.
“But we can’t afford to put them up [in a motel] for longer than one or two nights,” Landis said. “And sometimes they don’t want to leave the county, because the kids are in school here or their family is here.”
Those women are referred to Interchurch Social Services or The Salvation Army, but often they have already availed themselves of those agencies’ assistance.
“All too frequently,” states the Faiths United brochure, “these women and children were forced to return to their unsafe situations or become homeless.”
Landis noted that Faiths United aid is also provided to non-shelter clients of New Directions.
“They’re having trouble with their utility bills,” said Landis, “or their car needs fixed, or they don’t have next month’s rent. When Faiths United can, they help with those things, too. If someone needs a bed and we don’t have one in storage, they’ve been known to buy one, or get someone to donate one. They do many different things. It’s a wonderful program.”
Faiths United has big dreams for the future, said Aikman.
“We have hopes of finding a [donated] building where the owner needs the tax writeoff. We want to have a storefront, so women can take their time and choose what they want. We’re working on the 501(c)(3) process so donations can be tax deductible. ”
Other dreams include a professional clothing closet — “Because you have to look like you don’t need a job to get one,” said Aikman — a truck, a cell phone, a grant writer, scholarship programs, drivers to transport people to medical appointments, “mentor moms and grandmas,” strong people to move furniture and “fix-it guys who can work miracles” to repair the run-down apartments in which the women often have to live.
She also dreams of a place where sick children could be cared for so their mothers wouldn’t be forced to miss work. Aikman tells of women who have lost their jobs because they made the choice to leave work to tend to a sick child.
Aikman said she loves her work.
“The joy of this is when we take somebody to the storage unit and say, ‘Take what you want.’ They stand there, and their eyes well up with tears. Tears roll down their cheeks. They say they don’t really need anything, that they’re OK, they don’t want to take anything. I tell them, ‘No, God put it in here and he will replace it. You take whatever you need.’”
Aikman also tells the women that if the items aren’t exactly what they wanted, they can return them and thereby help out another woman in need.
“It’s also a way to let them know that things are going to get better,” she said.
Aikman encourages those who want to donate or volunteer to call her at 397-2226.
