Domestic Violence Awareness Month FUNdraising Relay

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Gateway is launching a fun, easy and important campaign to raise awareness and to raise funds so we can continue providing our essential and much-needed services to those who reach out for our support.

It has always been our goal to raise awareness of this crime during Domestic Violence Awareness month, but it is even more crucial now, during the COVID-19 Pandemic, to let victims know that we are still operating all of our programs at 100% capacity and are standing ready to support them.

Gateway is currently experiencing three times the number of crisis calls than any time before. The pandemic has made things more stressful for everyone, especially for victims of domestic violence.

Some of the ways the pandemic has affected the community and victims of domestic violence are:

* Financial stressors from loss of employment
* Isolation, not being able to visit family and friends
* Fear of contracting the virus
* Restrictions on public transportation and travel make it harder to leave
* Stress from working at home and trying to support their children's school work
* Abusers not giving victims access to disinfectants, medical care, insurance
information

All of these items and more are making domestic violence increase in occurrence and severity.

Gateway is here to help and so can you!

Gateway has created a Community Relay Campaign for the month of October. This campaign is easy, fun and can get everyone involved.

Here's how it works:

You donate $10 (or any amount) on this page, send the information to three of your contacts, within three days, and ask them to do the same. They then donate their $10 and send the request to three of their friends. And so on.

Participants can donate more than $10 and can send the request to as many people as they want to. There is no limit. This is just a starting point. The sky is really the limit.

The goal is to have 250 people donate $10 (or more) by October 31, 2020!

It's simple and will have a great impact on our agency and the victims of family violence that need us more than ever right now!

Please grab the "giving baton" and run the relay with us.

Your support save lives!

Below shows the impact your donation will have:

$40.00 A Backpack with school supplies
$64.00 2 day supply of PPE
$128.00 4 day supply of PPE
$200.00 5 Backpacks with school supplies
$500.00 6 days of Shelter, food, counseling
$1,000.00 12 days of Shelter, food, counseling