How many of us broke a piece of our precious china over the holidays while dining with our friends and family? The Women's Shelter of Central Arkansas has developed a fashionably fabulous program to benefit the abused women and children whom contact their facility that is perfect for our challenge this week. The program is based around raising funds through the sale of their hand-made and often customizable broken china jewelry. Many times our special china will become broken and we don't quite know what to do with the pieces...glue it back together, get it fixed professionally, throw it out?
Now we know exactly what to do with our broken china: Contact The Women's Shelter of Central Arkansas! A broken piece of china can be fashioned into an heirloom piece of one-of-a-kind jewelry made especially for you or someone you love. The items are created by victims of domestic abuse and volunteers, who sand the edges of the broken bits to create pendants, charms or other items. In its new form, these broken pieces are beautiful and have a new purpose, just like the women The Women's Shelter of Central Arkansas serve.
The Women's Shelter of Central Arkansas opened in 1995 and provides shelter and support for abused women and their children. It also operates a rape-crisis hotline and healthy dating programs in the schools.
The hotline, (1-866-358-2265), is answered 24 hours a day. Sometimes they get calls from someone that thinks there is domestic violence in a relationship or they call to say that they want to leave their spouse, but don't know how to do it . Many people may not realize that most victims are killed in the process of leaving and need this kind of assistance that the hotline provides.
In the last decade, Arkansas has been ranked ninth nationally for domestic homicides per capita; and first in the number of deaths of African-American women in 2002. There are about 38 shelters serving 75 counties in Arkansas. Charitable contributions are down and these shelters struggle to provide services.
These women are our friends, our mothers, our sisters, our co-workers and our neighbors. They don't talk about it because of the reaction that they get. Many times they need help with getting a job and with transportation, so they can get on their feet.
People who are interested in volunteering or in having a shelter representative speak to their group about domestic violence or sexual assault can reach Beth Goodrich, Executive Director of Women's Shelter of Central Arkansas, Inc., by phone at 501-730-9864 or by e-mail at wsca@conwaycorp.net.
Here is what Beth Goodrich had to say about The Compassion Fashion Project, "I appreciate your website, and your dedication to victims of violence!"
To purchase these one-of-a-kind, hand-made, customizable pieces of exquisite art, contact The Women's Shelter of Central Arkansas! Don't worry if you have no broken china as they have inventory available for you!
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