After several months of planning sessions, an advisory group for the Sparrow’s Hope women’s shelter will share their findings with the public — but the shelter won’t likely continue.
Heidi Magus, an adviser to the process of re-launching Sparrow’s Hope, said that a meeting scheduled for Nov. 27 at 7 p.m. in the multipurpose room at the Barrhead Agrena is intended to share that information.
She noted it costs anywhere from $600,000 to $1 million annually to run a women’s shelter.
“You can’t run a women’s shelter on volunteers; you need to have paid staff,” she said, adding the building that had been donated for the shelter’s use has now been sold, so launching the facility again would mean starting from scratch.
“We would love to invite the public one last time to an open community information night to learn about the findings from the strategic planning sessions, engage community partners, stakeholders and donors,” she said.
The shelter was launched as a faith-based initiative by Youth for Christ under former director Ben Kellert in spring 2011, but suspended operations after serving its last client in August 2013.
Kellert resigned from Youth for Christ shortly thereafter, and several agencies and boards in the area were approached to see if they would take over operations of the shelter.
A public meeting was called in June 2014, shortly after Kellert stepped back from Youth for Christ, to see if there was community interest in keeping the shelter going and to look at establishing a volunteer governance board.
Magus said roughly 30 people attended those meetings, and over the next four months they formed an advisory group to research the needs of the area with respect to family violence. Two strategic planning meetings were held in October, facilitated by a representative from Alberta Community Development, and several key priorities were identified within the two communities.
“There were a number of priorities, with the strongest being education around family violence and recognizing and supporting the already existing family violence support through collaboration,” Magus said.
The meeting’s agenda will include an information session to share the results of the planning sessions, a discussion of options for fund dispersal and a final vote on the facility. For more info contact Youth for Christ at 780-349-6464 or e-mail [email protected].
