April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, and Samaritan House needs your help to assist families and children who have been impacted by domestic violence and abuse.

We have recognized a need to support our Children’s Department with assistance for our youngest clients to attend daycare while their parents return to work or in the process of securing a job. We currently do not have the means to provide this support for our clients long-term, and it’s creating challenges for our clients to accept employment opportunities not knowing if their kids will have daycare coverage. We are asking for your support to help us create opportunities for mothers, fathers and their children to have the stability and flexibility they need to break the cycles of violence.  Without the chance to get a stable job, the path to healing is an discouraging, uphill battle, and victims of violence may even resort to returning to their abusers out of sheer desperation.

Please help us in our mission to provide this support system to our youngest clients, who have been innocent bystanders or victims to abuse in the home.

90% of our clients come to us with little to no income, and cannot afford childcare without government assistance. This assistance takes several weeks to take effect, if an family is even eligible. This means parents who have left an abusive partner are stuck with an impossible choice: take the job or watch the kids. We don’t believe any parent should have to make that choice. You can’t accept a job without childcare. You can’t afford childcare without a job. It’s a catch-22.

It’s estimated that nearly 700,000 children are abused in the U.S annually.  This includes neglect, physical violence and sexual assault. The physical and emotional scars from these childhood traumas can last a lifetime. While other children may not be directly victimized, witnessing domestic violence within the home can be equally traumatizing. Samaritan House provides a safe, encouraging environment to connect victims of violence to the resources they need to begin the healing process.

Samaritan House provides counseling, housing, job training, legal advocacy, support groups, transportation and so much more to help individuals and families escaping violence.

“Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul.”
― Dave Pelzer, A Child Called “It”