April 30, 2011

Thank you for taking the time to visit this webpage. I thought it may be helpful to you if you knew a little about CAASA in order to understand just how important it is. When I signed up for our NHS CAASA service project last year, I didn’t really know what it was; I only knew it was a worthy organization based on what I was told. This year, when I signed up for the project and became project leader, I thought I would do a little research. What I found while researching was mind blowing! From an article in the Daily Reporter, published in 2009, I found:

• CAASA isn’t just in Spencer!! CAASA helps people from 8 Northwest Iowa counties.
• There are shelters and outreach offices in Spirit Lake, Spencer, and Cherokee, with additional outreach offices in Estherville and Storm Lake.
• Clay and Dickinson counties are each staffed with a full-time adult advocate.
• Emmet and Palo Alto counties share one advocate.
• Buena Vista and Sac counties share one advocate.
• Cherokee and Ida counties share one advocate, meaning that victims have to go farther to receive the assistance needed.
• In 2007, CAASA received 453 crisis line calls, served 829 new clients, and sheltered 55 adults and 74 kids for a combined total of 1061 nights (a majority in Clay County!!!!)
• In the first 6 months of 2008, CAASA had 336 new clients and sheltered 34 adults and 37 kids for a combined total of 719 nights.

Granted, these are older statistics, the current stats are provided on this page as well, but one thing has remained the same. They are helping adults and kids every day to make a new start. We should stand up for these victims and give them the support they deserve. The Center Against Abuse and Sexual Assault is important and needs our help. Stand up for the hurting because who knows, it could be your neighbor or friend that needs you to stand up for them. Or it could be you that someone needs to stand up for. I want to stress to you how very important this group is to hundreds of people. Before this project, I didn’t realize how very important this group is and how many people it affected, but now I do. As a result, this project needs to go full force; we cannot lose sight of what we are fighting for. The kids and adults of Northwest Iowa need us.

Thank you,