Get Safe, Stay Safe

Try to imagine: Standing under an eave of a fast food restaurant trying to stay dry because it's raining and all you have on is shorts and tank top, asking people as they walk by for food. You've been here for 2 days, sleeping behind the restaurant because you have nowhere to go, but you want to stay here because the occasional stranger will give you something to eat. You cry often not because of how you are being forced to live, but because of a broken heart. Your husband beat and belittled you for many years and when you were diagnosed with cancer, told you how happy he'd be once you were dead. His abuse and treatment of you was passed on to your 19 year old son, who as you lay in bed sick and in pain says, "Hurry up and die. I'd kill you myself if I could". With these words from your child echoing in your mind, you walk out of the house, taking nothing, and never looked back".

This is the story of a client I helped last year. A stranger who bought her food let her borrow a cell phone to call a shelter. The shelter didn't have space, but they had the number of The Milligan Foundation and called for help on her behalf. Here at the Milligan Foundation, we used the shelter network we’ve created to find available bed space. We drove 60 miles to pick her up off the corner in front of the fast food restaurant where she’d been staying. Forty-five minutes later, we were at a shelter and she was given clothes and a bedroom.
Nightmarish as it is, this scenario is common reality not only for many women but also for their children. There are dozens of stories about survivors sleeping on the street, hitchhiking for rides, asking bus drivers to allow them to ride for free, days spent walking. Oftentimes, these things are done with small children in tow. All of these things done in an effort to leave violence and get to a shelter. But there is often a disconnect for shelters who want to help get these women and children off the street and the resources they have available. Cases where the only help a shelter or county program could give was $3 in bus fare for a family of 4 trying to go 50 miles away, not enough gas for the shelter minivan to go more than ten miles to pick someone up, or no resources at all to help someone who is trying to get to them.

The Milligan Foundation exists to help when there are no other options. The goal of the "Get safe, stay safe" campaign is to raise money for the Milligan Foundation to enable us to continue to provide services, but also expand our services so that more people are able to get help.
The shelter network has become such a valuable tool that we are expanding it and creating a secure, confidential community of service providers who can also address the growing problem of human trafficking. The community will facilitate direct lines of communication so that every service provider can collaborate with other services anywhere in the U.S., Europe, Africa and Asia. It has an exponential impact because it will create a service where none has been before.
The goal of this community is to never let anyone who is looking for help fall through the cracks.
Your support can make this community a reality. We are asking every person who takes the time to read this to please donate. We need $30,000 to fully launch this community on November 4th at the 3rd World Conference of Shelters. Every dollar given is going directly toward making this community that will help so many.
We’d be grateful if you could share this with your friends and family. Thank youfor your support.