Nancy Koebel, Natasha Fedler, Megha Murphy, Anne Huntley, Barbara Gurnik, Swatil Mahmud and Elizabeth Dietrich. On March 25, the Family Relocation Project is holding its annual fundraising event, Passion for Fashion, a gala dinner and fashion show. About 300 people are expected, and the organizers hope to raise $35,000.Handout
The organizers: Volunteers with the Family Relocation Project
The pitch: Raising $35,000
The cause: To help women and children escape domestic violence
It all started in 2007 with an ad in the Waterloo Region Record for a free sofa available for pickup.
When a woman called asking if the couch was still available, the owner said yes, and the woman started to cry. She explained that she was staying at a shelter to escape an abusive husband and had just found an apartment. She didn’t have any money or furniture and burst into tears of joy at the thought of having a couch.
From that start, Monique and her friend Linda – who didn’t want to give their last names for security reasons – started the Family Relocation Project, a non-profit in Kitchener, Ont., that provides beds, mattresses, blankets, furniture, dishes and other essential household items to women who have escaped domestic violence and are starting out on their own.
“We thought we’ll just do this one and then the next one and then one more, and it just kept rolling,” said Linda, who along with Monique is a retired nurse.
The friends now have a warehouse to store the items and a team of volunteers who collect donations and make deliveries. In the past 17 years they have helped furnish flats for almost 500 women and more than 600 children.
On March 25, the organization is holding its annual fundraising event, Passion for Fashion, a gala dinner and fashion show. About 300 people are expected, and the organizers hope to raise $35,000. The Family Relocation Project is associated with the YWCA of Kitchener-Waterloo, which administers donations.
Linda and Monique, who are both in their 70s, have no plans to slow down and keep in touch with many of the women they’ve helped. “It gives me great satisfaction to know that after we’ve moved a lady and her kids, or just a lady on her own, that she’s safe and she doesn’t have to be subjected to the abuse that her partner has given her,” Linda said.
She still marvels at how these women, who come from all walks of life, manage to give up everything and start over. “It boggles my mind. Because they have the strength and the courage to leave an abusive situation and to move on.”
Paul Waldie