#GivingTuesdayNow for HAVEN

Today, HAVEN From Domestic and Sexual Violence is participating in Giving Tuesday Now, a global day of giving created in response to the growing needs caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.  It is a day for connecting, supporting, and advocating for essential workers, vulnerable communities, and the organizations such as HAVEN that are helping those in need.

For 39 years, HAVEN From Domestic and Sexual Violence has been a resource for survivors of dating/domestic and sexual violence, stalking and human trafficking, as well as violence prevention programs. Working from a survivor-centered lens, HAVEN is able to use our expertise to provide safety, critical emergency remedies and support survivors toward empowering paths of healing. HAVEN uses survivor voices to develop strategies and resources that equip HAVEN advocates to quickly adapt to unexpected changes so they can continue to provide life-saving services to survivors.  This pandemic is just one example!

COVID-19 has shown us that just because the pandemic has caused much of the world, states and communities to shut down, that relationship violence has not.  Domestic and Sexual violence are on the rise.  During this time period, HAVEN received a 75% increase in requests and staff are working at a 65% increase with case management to maintain the level of services survivors are needing.  These numbers are alarming, and hope it will push you to support safety and solidarity for survivors.  Even before the spread of COVID-19, HAVEN has to continue to navigate serious gaps in resources for survivors. Navigating services during this pandemic has caused HAVEN advocates to switch to working primarily remotely for the first time, all while prioritizing safety, navigating closed systems of support and not wavering in the considerations for providing digital services to protect survivors’ privacy and confidentiality. This has become even more difficult with some government services currently shut down and/or not able to provide the level of services survivors need.  Additionally, HAVEN was not able to host the annual ‘An Evening With HAVEN’ fundraiser in April, and has cancelled the ‘Gorge-us Gals Ride’ annual fundraiser in May, so not only did HAVEN incur new expenses associated with COVID-19, our existing expenses that are supported by the annual fundraisers and associated with maintaining some of the most basic needs to survivors have left an exponential gap in services.  Due to this pandemic crisis, we have created a ‘HAVEN COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund’ to fill these gaps.

Your Giving Tuesday donation will support HAVEN’s COVID-19 rapid response work: