Valentine’s Day goodies to brighten up shelters
Published: February 3, 2006
Thoughts around Valentine’s Day are often of love and being romantic, but for many people fleeing an abusive relationship it can be a difficult holiday to get through.
That is why the Sudbury-Wayland-Lincoln Domestic Violence Roundtable will present women, men and children temporarily living in local shelters with a bag of goodies on Valentine’s Day.
“It’s evolved into a very important holiday for us to cover, not just for the moms, but especially the kids,” said Suzanne Sege, a member of the roundtable.
In order to fill the bags to donate to shelters in Framingham, Waltham and Newton, the roundtable needs help from the public. They are asking people to donate a variety of items so they can make each bag special for every mother, father or child.
“It was very personal for me last year when I was putting these bags together,” said Sege, who is organizing the collection for a second time. “I somehow felt I was channeling these kids and these families as I was doing each bag.”
The Sudbury-Wayland-Lincoln Domestic Violence Roundtable was founded in 1998 and promotes awareness of domestic violence while providing support to victims.
For the moms’ bags, the roundtable is looking for bath products, cosmetics, socks, costume jewelry, nail polish, hair products, phone cards, pocketbook size calendars, journals and postage stamps to include in the bags.
Sege said she also wants to make sure each mother’s bag includes a disposable camera, along with a small photo album or picture frame.
“When you move into someplace, you put pictures out. It makes it feel like home. That’s what we’re trying to create,” she said.
Donations of gift cards to places such as CVS, Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, Target or Friendly’s are also helpful.
Items the roundtable is looking for to put in the bags for children include crayons, coloring books, stickers and sticker books, playing cards, flash cards, diaries, Matchbox cars and children’s bath products. In the past, children have ranged in age from newborn to 16, so it is important to have items for all ages of children.
Books are also important to give to the children, but Sege asked people to be sensitive as to what types of books they choose.
“There are a lot of books showing moms and dads hugging and kissing their kids. I shied away from those because these children have experienced something completely different,” she said. “I was afraid it would increase the sense of ’everyone else has love, why was I not deserving of that.’”
Toys, such as Batman, Spider-Man and the Invincibles are welcome, and Sege requests that all toys be non-violent. Little stuffed animals are also great, she said.
“The flash cards and the coloring books, where they’re learning letters or whatever, that’s really important,” Sege said. “It gives the moms an opportunity to play and do what moms normally do, which is enhance their kid’s learning.”
Although most adults in these shelters are women, Sege said last year there were two fathers with their children. The roundtable will provide items for the men’s bags if there are fathers in the shelters again this year.
Because these families are often living in one room, with three or four children and a mom or a dad, the roundtable is looking for donations of full-size shampoos and bath products. When it comes to toys, however, they would like to keep them fairly small, but meaningful, Sege said.
Sege said people should think about what they would buy for a niece or nephew when figuring out what to donate.
“If everyone just did a little something, like for the little girls, barrettes and bracelets are huge. It doesn’t have to be really expensive,” she said.
Most importantly, Sege said they want only new items donated because these bags are meant to be special.
“We really take pride in decorating each bag, in making them special, so these people feel special,” she said.
The domestic violence roundtable will be collecting donations at four drop-off sites until Feb. 10. Those locations are CVS and Sudbury Farms in Sudbury, Donelan’s Market in Lincoln and the Wayland Police Station.
Once the items are collected, they will be donated to three shelters - SMOC of Framingham, REACH of Waltham and Second Step of Newton. Prior to Valentine’s Day, Sege will receive a list of the adults and kids living in each of these shelters.
“These are shelters for people fleeing domestic violence situations,” Sege said. “There’s a huge waiting list to get into all of them, so the ones that are there are probably the most severe, their lives are the most threatened.”
SMOC provides emergency housing for people fleeing a domestic violence situation. REACH allows women and their children to stay in their shelter for up to 90 days. People can stay up to two years at Second Step.
“Their homes are more spacious. They have a larger room and it’s more of a home-like setting,” Sege said. “They go through vocational training and get job placement help.”
Last year, the domestic violence roundtable filled 125 bags. The response from the moms and kids receiving the bags was amazing, Sege said.
So many items were collected last year, she said the bags were overflowing.
“It was unbelievable the response we got from the community. I’m looking forward to doing it again this year,” she said.
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