Ed and Barb Lavin
On Thursday, February 9, a group of PebbleCreek residents met at the Palm Room in Eagle’s Nest for their quarterly meeting to discuss volunteer opportunities at New Life Center. The name of the group of volunteers is Caring Friends and we spend time at the shelter bringing some joy and happiness to the residents. This is our passion because in Arizona 100 women are killed each year in domestic violence incidents and 10% occur right here in the west valley.
New Life Center is a shelter here in Goodyear (about 15 minutes from PebbleCreek) for abused women and children. When the family arrives (from anywhere in the U.S.), they are assigned an advocate who works with them and helps them through their trauma. They are given help with writing a resume, looking for employment, job skills, parenting skills, etc. New Life is one of just a few shelters in our country who accept teenage boys. The mothers and their children can stay for up to four months.
Our RSVP program (Respectfully Serving Valuable People) takes food to the shelter every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. New Life Center provides the main entree and we take the side dishes (a vegetable, fruit, dessert and bread product). We go in teams of four – eight volunteers once or twice a month. We plan on feeding about 50 residents, most of them being children. We also take coloring books, crayons, puzzles, reading books, etc. (all purchased at the dollar store) and spend quality time with the little ones. Besides serving food, we chat with the moms and play with the children making it all so worthwhile! We are only there for a couple hours but go home feeling that this was the best thing we have done all month!
The moms and children live in casitas. We have adopted one and redo it periodically. This month Jan and Don Gillfillan have volunteered to paint our casita. Donna Aybar, chairperson of the Casita project, has a committee who will be cleaning and decorating. They are always in need of volunteers. Hopes Closet is a thrift store which provides much of New Life’s income and is also a great volunteer opportunity.
Our next quarterly meeting will be in May to get organized for the summer months. Many of our volunteers leave for the summer so we need summer volunteers in order to keep the program going – we are always in need of more volunteers but our greatest need is during the summer months.
“Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation’s compassion, unselfish caring, patience and just plain love for one another,” Erma Bombeck (from Volunteer Handbook).
If you would like to learn more about New Life Center, please contact Marina Pappas, Volunteer Coordinator (623-932-4404, [email protected]) or PebbleCreek residents Barb and Ed Lavin, (623-36-5636, [email protected]).