(Spirit Lake)– The Family Crisis Center is in the midst of a major fundraising campaign. An advocate that serves Clay and Dickinson counties says they cover 17 counties in northwest Iowa for their domestic violence division with a mobile facility…
“We can meet anyone anywhere they are. We can go to their place of work; we can go to their doctor’s appointments with them; we can go to their home; we can do anything they need us to do to help them figure out how they want to change their own lives and help them figure out what it is they want to do and get them the resources to be able to do that: find housing, help them get vehicles in some cases, we have resources for some people who are, you know, that meet certain qualifications can even get a vehicle; help them get help with their utility bills, with food assistance, with anything.”
The Family Crisis Center also provides services for victims of violent crimes…
“Families who have lost a loved on to homicide, people who have lost someone to vehicular manslaughter, people who are the victims of human trafficking. That division covers everything from here, Emmet county to Osceola like we talked about, but all the way down to the state line. We cover all of the western third of the state and we cover all of those counties to help people that are suffering with any of those problems.”
She adds the fundraising comes at a critical time for the Family Crisis Center. She says they were heavily impacted by the pandemic which shut down the court system for awhile…
“We’re not funded by taxpayer dollars. It is from fines and penalties that people pay in when they’re convicted of criminal charges. But the way the law is written they never anticipated a scenario where the courts would close for like a year and-a-half and so when people would plead out those charges, we did not get those funds. Now they’ve re-written the law and everything’s fixed, but they can’t make it retroactive and so there’s a period of a couple of years where our funding is going to take a hit.”
As part of their fundraising, the Family Crisis Center is selling raffle tickets for $100 a piece for a 2022 Polaris Ranger. Tickets can be purchased by calling Andrea at 712-449-7192 or on their Facebook page at Family Crisis Centers | Facebook . The drawing will be held August 8th.
