Fifteen Members from Pell City United Methodist Church donned their gardening gloves to give the YWCA’s Our Place shelter a “spruce up” just in time for spring. As part of their “Worship Without Walls” community mission, parishioners volunteer to serve in the community rather than attend worship services. Our Place was selected as a service site and volunteers cleaned out flower beds around the shelter and revamped the landscaped areas in the front. 
“We at Our Place are so grateful to the Pell City First United Methodist members who volunteered to make our planters and landscape look beautiful. So many women and children are having one of the worst days of their lives when arriving at Our Place and having a front entrance that looks lovely and warm helps make shelter a little less scary during this critical time,” states Carrie Leland, Rural Domestic Violence Services Coordinator. 
Rural domestic violence victims are often in isolated locations and have difficulty accessing services. Perhaps deterred by lack of transportation, distance or fear of an unknown city, women in the St. Clair County area are often hesitant to travel to Birmingham to seek shelter from an abuser. Our Place is confidentially located and is the only domestic violence shelter serving victims in St. Clair and Blount counties certified by the Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence. 
In addition to emergency shelter, which is necessary to ensure safety, victims also need practical assistance – they need to know about other services that are available to them and must be able to access these services within their communities. 
Our Place provides the additional services that the women and children who are escaping abusive situations need such as, court advocacy, assistance with protection from abuse orders and community outreach. Our Place also provides case management and financial assistance for re-housing victims displaced by domestic violence through the Special Assessment Intervention Liasion (SAIL) program in conjunction with DHR.
The YW would like to send a special thank you to the volunteers from Pell City United Methodist Church for all of their hard work and dedication to the women, children and families that we serve. To learn more about the YWCA programs or if you are interested in donating please click here.