Kelowna Women's Shelter gets $100K from Stober Foundation

Photo: Contributed

Dallas Stober, Liberty Stober and Linda Stober with the Stober Foundation, along with Kelowna Women's Shelter executive director Allison Mclauchlan and resource development coordinator Ester Pike.

The Kelowna Women's Shelter has been gifted $100,000 from the Stober Foundation to support essential workers in the community.

The donation will help provide critical services to victims of domestic abuse by allowing the hire of additional frontline workers at the shelter.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Kelowna Women's Shelter. Over those 40 years, they have provided ample support to women and children including housing, supplies, programs and support services.

As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches on, it continues to put a strain on the efforts to end violence against women as access to services is more difficult. 

“Requests for shelter services increases each year already as is. Although COVID-19 doesn’t create domestic violence, there is a marked increase in severity and number of instances because of it and we are seeing this reflected in our daily work at the shelter," says resource development coordinator for the Kelowna Women's Shelter Ester Pike.

In Canada, 3,491 women and their 2,724 children seek out safety at shelters such as the Kelowna Women's Shelter. Due to full capacities, approximately 300 of these women and children are turned away.

This issue is also reflected at the Kelowna Women's Shelter. A total of 280 women and children sought housing at the shelter in 2019, compared to 240 the year before, despite having the same 16 core beds.

In addition to this, frontline staff at the shelter answered 670 crisis and counselling calls and managed more than 1,100 counselling sessions, both individual and group.

These numbers are anticipated to grow again this year, making funding such as the donation from the Stober Foundation crucial. 

“Our support workers are the primary contact for anyone who is experiencing intimate partner violence. COVID-19 only added to our support workers task lists and we were worried that burnout would increase because of this," says Pike.

"With the funding provided by the Stober Foundation, we can ensure that enough staff are available at all times to respond to the needs of our residents and the general community while continuing to care for
our staff.”

The shelter operates 24/7, 365 days a year to ensure everyone can get the help they need.