The person whose name is drawn on Tuesday, Dec. 1, as winner of an AVENUES fund-raiser raffle will take home a cameo pendant valued at more than $1,600, according to its creator.
Debbie Hurt, co-owner of AVA Goldworks at 211 Center St., explained why the jewelry store made this one-of-a-kind cameo pendant for the AVENUES agency. The drawing will be at AVA Goldworks.
Hurt said 100 percent of the proceeds from the ticket sales will go to helping women and children in the area fight domestic and sexual abuse and live happy and healthy lives.
“AVENUES opened its doors in December of 1989 as a safe emergency shelter for abused women and their children,” Hurt said. “As AVENUES awareness of the complexity of domestic and sexual abuse has grown,” and the agency responded by adding services. “AVENUES provides crisis intervention, a 24-hour hot line, safe shelters, orders of protection and support groups, among other domestic and sexual violence advocacy services.”
Hurt encouraged people to buy the raffle tickets and support AVENUES to help people “better their lives when they need it the most.”
Judy Edmondson, executive director of AVENUES, called the cameo pendant “an amazing donation, and they made it for AVENUES. We are very pleased they did this for us.
“We thank those who have bought tickets and would like to encourage those who are considering buying them to go ahead,” Edmondson said. “You have a good chance of winning this pendant.”
Tickets are $20 and may be purchased at AVA Goldworks, by calling the AVENUES office at (573) 406-1400 or from any AVENUES board member or staff member. Proceeds from the ticket sales “will go toward providing for client programs needs,” Edmondson said. Clients are victims of domestic or sexual violence. They and their children are housed at the AVENUES shelter in Hannibal.
Survey shows domestic violence leading problem
“The United Way of the Mark Twain Area did a needs assessment this year, and they found that domestic violence was the number one” problem, Edmondson said. Two people have recently died in Hannibal and two more in La Grange “as a result of domestic violence,” she added. “It is a community issue. We have to — as a community — address it.
“Unfortunately it does take money to be able to provide the services that are needed,” she said. “From Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 of this year, we served 354 new clients - women and children. ‘New’ means they had not received services from AVENUES in the past.”
As an emergency shelter, “we start out with a 30-day time frame, and at the end of that 30 days we see if they still have needs to stay in the shelter,” Edmondson said. “The average stay is probably 60 days.”
Explaining how AVENUES is funded, she said it receives funding through the state and federal grant process. Now, however, “we are receiving more and more private foundation money that we are intentionally going after, and we are working on developing our donor resources,” she said. “Based on the fact that grants are getting more and more competitive and are being cut, we are having to find other ways to make ends meet.
“Buying these (raffle) tickets is going to benefit the agency and benefit the women and children that we serve.”
