Doing Good: Saving Grace
By:
Updated: February 15, 2010
With the bright walls and colorful decor, you would never guess the Saving Grace building was once a convent - but it still houses women looking for something more.
"It's normal for them to need a safe place to fall," said Saving Grace Executive Director, and Founder, Becky Shaffer.
Almost 20 young women live at Saving Grace in Rogers - for some it may be their first real home. They are all young women who have been in homes or foster care - and at 18 found themselves with no where to turn.
"I didn't even think about it," said Saving Grace volunteer, Jan Shinall. "When these children turn 18, where do they go? What do they do? You are giving support to these children that have had a tough life."
A tough life is something Shaffer knows a lot about. She doesn't just sympathize with these girls - she was one.
"I slept with a Bible on my chest because I felt it would protect me, and I thought she might kill me in my sleep, that's how bad it was when I was little," she said.
Growing up with an abusive mother - Shaffer eventually ended up in a children's home.
"When it came time for me to leave I didn't have any options," she said. "I didn't have a family to go home to, and there wasn't an option to stay."
At Saving Grace, women who have aged out of the system have their own rooms - and mentors. Maybe more importantly, they have access to education. They learn lifeskills like everything from doing laundry to balancing a checkbook. The more classes they attend, the less rent they have to pay. The home offers stability - and hopefully breaks a cycle.
"They just need that step up and that encouragement to make a better life for themselves so they don't fall back into the system, and return into the same system they came out of," Shinall said.
One of the first tasks of women entering Saving Grace is making a scrapbook of their lives. A book Becky Shaffer hopes will now offer the potential to have a much happier ending.
For more information on Saving Grace, go to: http://savinggracenwa.org/contact-us/
"It's normal for them to need a safe place to fall," said Saving Grace Executive Director, and Founder, Becky Shaffer.
Almost 20 young women live at Saving Grace in Rogers - for some it may be their first real home. They are all young women who have been in homes or foster care - and at 18 found themselves with no where to turn.
"I didn't even think about it," said Saving Grace volunteer, Jan Shinall. "When these children turn 18, where do they go? What do they do? You are giving support to these children that have had a tough life."
A tough life is something Shaffer knows a lot about. She doesn't just sympathize with these girls - she was one.
"I slept with a Bible on my chest because I felt it would protect me, and I thought she might kill me in my sleep, that's how bad it was when I was little," she said.
Growing up with an abusive mother - Shaffer eventually ended up in a children's home.
"When it came time for me to leave I didn't have any options," she said. "I didn't have a family to go home to, and there wasn't an option to stay."
At Saving Grace, women who have aged out of the system have their own rooms - and mentors. Maybe more importantly, they have access to education. They learn lifeskills like everything from doing laundry to balancing a checkbook. The more classes they attend, the less rent they have to pay. The home offers stability - and hopefully breaks a cycle.
"They just need that step up and that encouragement to make a better life for themselves so they don't fall back into the system, and return into the same system they came out of," Shinall said.
One of the first tasks of women entering Saving Grace is making a scrapbook of their lives. A book Becky Shaffer hopes will now offer the potential to have a much happier ending.
For more information on Saving Grace, go to: http://savinggracenwa.org/contact-us/
