You can help us create an expanded, contiguous campus between our current facility and our old home across the street.
For more than 50 years now, our community has shown us they share The Friendship Center's vision for a future free from violence. Each year, community support is what enables our advocates to serve hundreds of survivors with victim-centered services, field thousands of calls to our 24-hour crisis line, and provide thousands of nights of safe shelter to those fleeing violence. Last year was no exception, but before it was over, we reached an exciting milestone that will allow us to expand our programming and staff capacity.
Across from our current staff offices and onsite shelter in Helena's Sixth Ward is a 2,900 square-foot house at 1503 Gallatin Avenue. The property was our original shelter space. With the leadership of Holly Kaleczyc and lots of community support, The Friendship Center expanded and moved into our current facility in 2007. With a rising demand for our services, we find ourselves entering yet another period of growth and renewal. As part of this phase of our evolution, we had the unique and timely opportunity this past December to purchase our former home across the street.
We were able to reacquire the original Friendship Center thanks to the early support of individual, corporate, philanthropic, and government partners. In reacquiring the Gallatin Avenue house, we completed the first phase of a three-year capital project, and we're now inviting you to join our early champions for the next milestone.
Creating a contiguous campus between our current facility and the house across the street will multiply the already-significant volume of services we're able to provide for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking in our tri-county area. It will also maximize our efforts to prevent future instances of violence through community education. Realizing that vision, however, will require renovations and upgrades to the house that has been used as a residence since we moved out. Once updated for staff and client use, the house will allow us to:
Serve 300 more clients per year with even more services like support groups, educational opportunities, and wellness classes
Double the reach of our community education with 70 presentations every year for more than 2,000 people
Double our ability to coordinate with peer agencies and equip other service providers with knowledge by providing 15 trainings every year for more than 250 professionals
Grow and maintain volunteer capacity to support services and outreach
While the increase of our impact will be considerable, what's especially notable about this project is that it will allow us to meet our community's growing needs without interrupting our current services—and all for a modest price tag.
Our community's commitment to date accounts for nearly half of our overall capital campaign goal of $600,000. We hope this confidence and generosity inspires you to consider making a gift or pledge of your own toward this effort.
If you share our passion for fostering a healthy community, working together to eliminate violence, and serving others with care and dignity, we’d be honored to have your support. You can visit our capital campaign page to learn more, or make one-time gift today if you're ready to contribute. We also invite you to share that page with others who may want to give.
P.S. If you prefer to make a campaign gift by mail, you can send your check donation to The Friendship Center at 1430 N Sanders Street, Helena, MT 59601. We can also accept gifts of stock for the campaign. Email kim.p@thefriendshipcenter.org or call at 406.442.6800 to speak with TFC Development Director Kim Patterson about donating stock, or to request a packet with campaign info and a pledge card by mail.
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