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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0506.001 2006-2008 THE STRUGGLE There is a chapter missing from this "struggle". Iu 1975 a group of a few West Hawaii women organized work parties and took turns doing farm work or building houses on each other's newly acquired coffee farms. Soon a core group had formed around the issues confronting the lacks in the Kona community for women's services. Women that lived up long bumpy jeep roads and who had no access to electricity or phones met at the market, the post office and the Laundromat to afire their concerns. I met Martha Gundlach who inspired us with publications sent from Florida by her feminist Mother, Barbara.. Marie Phillips, Judi Woods, Chrissy Johnson, and others gathered to share stories and make plans. We heard from other women that jobs were hard to find especially if there was no call back option for prospective employers. Childcare needed to be shared. While driving on the Mamalahoa Hwy. ane day, we noticed an empty shack sitting across from the Cleaners and just mauka of the turn-off to Napoopoo. We stopped by the Farm Supply Store "Farm & Garden" and asked Takeo Kudo, if he knew who owned the shack. He said he loiew that person v~d would ask what rent would be required. We were elated at the aspect of having a place to hook up a phone, plug in a sewing machine, hang a bulletin board, exchange resources. We published the phone number and made a sign with a beautiful rainbow. The first Women's Center was born and it was only $100 per month. We put a collection jar and left it open with a note to please contribute and be honest enough not to steal from it. We never lost a penny to theft and had no problem paying the $100 or the phone or electricity. Sally Hodges donated beautiful rich brown carpeting for the babies to crawl on. Martha's sister, Jana came down from her coffee farm and helped us clean and organize. Areal childcare exchange was happening. The place buzzed with activity. The downside of this was that it was situated right next to a pig farm and on a hot day with the wind blowing just right, it was sometimes very odoirous. But we plugged our noses and carried on. Then one day a group of gentlemen arrived and announced they were from the regulatory agencies and wanted Co know if we had a permit to operate a public facility. We were dismayed. No one knew about beauracracies. It was beyond our experience. When asking around we learned that there was a body called The County Committee on the Status of Women. We learned that the Chair of that Committee was Margaret Ushijima. We called her and invited her and the committee to come and meet with us. Margazet's husband, John, was the then Speaker of the House of the Senate. She knew her way around. She brought Janet Fujioka, sister of Mayor Matayoshi and his wife Mary with her. They drove up the long bumpy road to my house and sat on the floor of my coffee shack and shared lunch with us. We talked about our vision of what was needed for women in Kona. Janet Fujioka invited me to become a member of the County Committee on the Status of Women. They all agreed that this would be a good place to start. I was appointed to the Committee and took the long trip to Hilo once a month for those meetings. There I met Connie Cate, also a member of the Committee. When I described what the needs were in Kona, she stated that she thought it was a great idea and that even Hilo did not have such a place. I could have argued that Hilo had a University. It also had coffee shops and paved roads. But I did not. I stated that indeed Hilo should have a Women's Center as well. Cbmtn. Na Sd ~I. Ref. Ta ~j ~L Ref. Dote .lUL i Let me back track for minute. One day I ran into a friend, Arnie Rabin, at the Health Food Store. I told him what I wanted to do and Arnie said here's a phone number for you. Her name is Beverly Mesch and she has "some kind of women's project she is working on in Hilo". So on my next trip to Hilo I called her and she invited me over to her house on Lehua Street. When I arrived at her house I found it full of the bustling activity of teenagers. Bicycles in the entrance way, books and sneakers on the living room table in a disarray of papers and projects. Beverly welcomed me and introduced me to her two teen aged boys; Eric and Jules. She was a small, unassuming, soft spoken woman with a welcoming smile and just a hint of a New York accent. I was immediately impressed by her as she methodically swept all the disarray of books, papers, socks, empty paper plates onto the floor from the table which was perched only a few feet off the floor. She then placed a clean piece of paper and two pencils on the table and asked quietly, "now how can t help you. We sat on floor pillows and we engaged in a long conversation as women do. We talked about our children, failed marriages, hopes and plans for the future. By the time I left we were friends. I learned that she and a friend, Allegra Perhaes, had come from New York with their 4 children after meeting during a landlord/tenant dispute. They had been neighbors in an apartment building and had been organizers in this uprising. Beverly was a champion for the poor and disenfranchised even back in New York. Here in Hawaii Beverly had moved into a fairly quiet neighborhood but was wakened nightly by a woman's screams who was being beaten by her husband. It was then that she learned that there were no services for this woman; that the police were not interested; that there was no place for her to turn. Beverly was a writer and wrote an article for the Hilo Rain, a biweekly newspaper. In researching the article she learned how common it is for husbands or boyfriends to beat their wives and/or girlfriends; how men saw this as their right and how women accepted it. Beverly's goal was to increase community awareness of this problem and to establish a shelter for these women. But there were problems. The police kept no statistics. It was considered a "non-crime". She needed a place to collect statistics. She had written most of the grant proposal but needed numbers for the needs assessment portion. Another friend who also served on the Status of Women Committee, Ellen Bezona, lived just down the street. She was serving also on the Board of Directors of the YWCA. She offered to speak to the Director, Priscilla Garson, about giving us some space in the cottage behind the YWCA's swimming pool. A seed was planted. Priscilla agreed. The YWCA on a national level, having been radicalized by N.O.W., had interest in the _ growing need for Women's Services. Priscilla applied for CETA funds to fund two staff positions. I was hired in the Spring of 1977 as the YWCA's first Program Coordinator. I met the criteria for CETA funds because I was living at poverty level with my child, Angela, then 7 years old. Allegra Perhaes, working as a waitress at Ken's Pancake House also met those criteria as a single parent of two children; Michael and Marisa. Having been a formerly battered women, she applied for the Peer Counselor position and we became partners running the first Women's Center on this Island and indeed in this state. I left my farm in mauka Konato be cared for by my boy friend, Norman Kukona, and moved to Hilo with my daughter, Angela. Allegra and I both moved into apartments at Mauna Loa Shores. We also met the criteria for County Housing reduced rent. My first meeting with Allegra is lost to my memory right now. But I soon became fascinated by her energy, her intelligence and her ability to learn quickly, anything that was presented to her. She did not come to this work with a feminist ideology. I was the only feminist in residence there. Beverly described herself always and to this day as a "humanist". But Allegra read everything. She devoured my Mary Daly books, the early writings of the feminist scholars. We subscribed to Off Our Backs and Women's Free Press. She became my best friend and cohort. We had a vision. We were changing the world one woman at a time. When we opened the doors of the YWCA cottage and published our phone number we were over-whelmed by women seeking shelter from domestic violence. Allegra and I knew nothing of boundaries in those days. We frequently sheltered battered women and their children in our own apartments Allegra even took pets in even though pets were not allowed there. We were front-line workers with al] the inherent risks and of course the rewards of gratitude from the women. At the Women's Center we collected statistics for Beverly who finished the grant proposal and sent it on to funding agencies. Others wanted to help. A task force was formed. Mimi Warsh, the Associate Director of the Mental Health Association in Hawaii County was our neighbor in the cottage. She offered her secretary, Mary Lyons, to type the proposal and sent it to seven private foundations. The first money arrived in April. We found the perfect house; a two story, 5-bedroom place with a basement, a spacious kitchen and lanai situated on one acre in a quiet residential section of Hilo near shopping, the bus line and schools. Allegra and I worked tirelessly to clean and furbish the house. We painted and polished and engaged others to help. The first staff; Winnie Ma'I, was Marietta Rea .Louisa Perraira was the first house manager. They were paid by Alu Like funds. On July 12, 1978, after an intense 8 weeks of staff training, cleaning, painting, fixing and furnishing, the Family Crisis Shelter opened its doors. It was the first Women's Shelter in Hilo and also the first in the State. .Beverly Mesch, the original Mother, having given birth to this project and had contributed so much decided to go on to other things.. Allegra Perhaes became the Director. She was smart and capable and the strength of her personality brought others in to volunteer. The budget that first year was $85,000 which came from private foundations, from Alu Like/CETA, and from the County. In the first six months, 63 women and 108 children came to the shelter for refuge. Two of the staff found the work too stressful and left but were replaced. The legal incorporation was completed; we had an Inc. after our name and were on our own. I became the first President of the Board of Directors. I had been nominated by Ben Gattos, now a Judge. A speakers pool was organized. I did the first training of the Police officers at Hale Nani Police Acadamy. This was after an officer had brought a husband into the shelter and demanded that he be able to "just talk to his wife". Agencies including the hospital and the Counseling Center asked for staff training. Still at the YWCA Women's Center, I took on thejob of Peer Counselor Trainer. Ginny Aste came on board then as the next Women's Center Coordinator. I always wanted to get back to Kona and had not given up my original goal of getting a Women's Center in Kona. For a short time the YWCA funded two positions in Dona. The first phone was installed in the bedroom of my coffee shack. Jean Cross and Winnie Chang were hired as staff. Later a small ofFice was found in the Old Bishop Estate Office in Kealekekua. The Kona Women's Center was also a hub of activity, meetings, peer counseling workshops, etc.: But it died a tragic death when it was set on fire and burned by an irate husband. It was decided that this work out here on the front lines of rural Kona was a risky business. The Kona Women's Center closed but for the next year I continued to take my peer counseling workshop around the Island. We met in small groups at every public park on this Island, spreading the word of women's "condition", However energy at the Family Crisis Shelter, Inc. was growing. Allegra was a powerful voice at the legislahne and was able to draw on a ground-swell of women and men for support. The second year's budget was 138,000, fimded by the state, United Way, the County and private foundations. The Shelter staff grew to six permanent positions and six CETA positions, a iota] of 12 staff providing 24-hour coverage. We added a children's program and were able to increase counseling and advocacy services. Formerly battered women became staff. During the third year, the statewide Coalition on Battered Women was organized and offered our State Legislatures a unified picture of the needs of abused women and their children. A Shelter movement on Kauai and Maui emerged from this declaration of solidarity. Then came funding cutbacks and delays and the CETA phase-out. By the end of the third year, the Shelter staff was down to six positions. The children's program was suspended. The shelter struggled with accumulating debts. We began to discuss the possibility of cutting back on services, accepting only those in immediately life-threatening situations. To decrease Shelter debts, staff took only two-thirds of their already skimpy salaries for 1981. Historically staff has felt far too much time was spent playing the bureaucrats' paper game, soliciting funds, and trying to make ends meet, and consequently, too little is spent providing urgently needed counseling and advocacy. I had returned to Kona but the Shelter needed me and I drove weekly to facilitate Women's support Groups. By 1985 I had re-connected with Hilo and saw that in order to become a real professional, I needed to complete my degree. There is a whole chapter here which I will leave others to tell. Suffice it to say, there were mistakes made. The First Shelter in the state became an object of intense scrutiny and was eventually closed. However in spite of all the obstacles and setbacks the Family Crisis Shelter, h2c. was able to open the West Hawaii Domestic Abuse Shelter i? 1988. The setbacks in the ntid-90 forced this shelter to become an Agency. It is now Turning Point For Families, Inc. The little 7 year old girl who went with me to Hilo to open the Women's Center is now all grown up. She will be 36 this summer of 2006 and is the Supervisor of staff working at TURNING POINT FOR FAMILIES, INC. s ~ a w ~ ~ ~ U o O a~ r--, ~ ~ ~ o U r~.// u M )st r-~ W r".. 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