Members of the Crisis Center Foundation and domestic violence survivor advocates decorated the downtown square on Sunday with the color purple. The Crisis Center Foundation sponsored the “Every1 Knows Some1” awareness event to kick off Domestic Violence Awareness month.
Crisis Center Community Outreach Coordinator Anna Sprague says it’s one of many events coming to the surrounding area this month to get the word out about services and supports available to those who fall victim to domestic violence: “Kind of what we are wanting to do for this month is focus on kids’ events with Halloween being this month.”
Sprague says those events will include multiple trunk-or-treat events in the area, parent-teacher conferences at local schools, and visiting the surrounding counties of Scott and Cass as well as visiting Meredosia, Franklin, and Waverly to connect with the more rural centers of their service territory.
Sprague, who is mainly centered at the new Morton Avenue office, says she receives many people stopping in to provide donations to their shelter. She says the shelter currently remains full as domestic violence in the area continues to be on the rise: “Even though the pandemic kind of put a big…I don’t want to say damper on lots of things…but some people just didn’t know how to reach out because they didn’t think they could. Right now, we have been a full shelter for about the last 4 months. We hold around 19 people for bunking, etc. and that hasn’t tapered off at all.”
Sprague says the community should watch the Crisis Center Foundation’s social media channels for different shareable videos, graphics, and information as they will be spreading information all month long in attempt to help those who may not know what services that are available to them. As the Outreach Coordinator, Sprague says she has a passion for getting as much information out as possible for the services available to people not just through the foundation but through the many organizations the foundation partners with in the Jacksonville area.