 So, a little bit about Sister Care's mission is about freeing families from fear. We are a domestic violence service agency helping survivors escape intimate partner violence. The services that we offer, it's free and it's confidential. We offer emergency shelter. We offer counseling services as an individual and actually group support. We offer court advocacy and community outreach advocates helping those that aren't in our shelter that they can still obtain the services that they need. Domestic violence is really about somebody valuing power and control over someone and sometimes those signs are hidden but you know the most predominant is that physical abuse. Those things that happen between intimate partners where there's pushing and shoving and even you know physical bruising and breaking of bones but it also, domestic violence is also about emotional and mental abuse and that could be just something that's not quite evident from somebody that might be a neighbor or a teacher or someone in a church may see but it's an opportunity for that perpetrator for that assailant to take complete control of someone and make them feel less than a human being. Always downplaying you know them, nothing's ever good enough and honestly it also can involve sexual assault as well within an intimate partner relationship so those warning signs are not as clear I think that people would want to know but when you are listening to a friend or a neighbor and they don't seem as open it's an opportunity just to make sure that you listen to them and make sure that you offer support so it's really important for our community to know that sister care is here for you know women and their children anybody experiencing intimate partner violence because it's difficult to identify but we have to support those survivors. If somebody is you know thinking that this person might be suffering from this type of violence within their home is the best thing to do is to listen to them and then also to be educated on what sister care is and that might just be acknowledging that they know about this agency offering you know our service line our service line is a 24 hour service line so anybody can call at any time of the day and just ask for help there is a trained advocate on the other end who will listen and ask those questions to make sure that they create a safety plan for that person and support them as to how they want to gain our services. Sister care is kind of the hub spot so we would you know if somebody is in need of something and we ask what that need is we will get them connected whether it's you know gaining access to another faith-based organization that they want to join child care facilities education for themselves or their children we are kind of that resource hub to really just no individual is a cookie cutter and we really take our time with those that call us to make sure that first they're safe second we're really understanding what they are needing and we supply it and the good thing is is that sister care never leaves anyone so a person who's a survivor may not be ready to go into counseling at that time but the information is shared to them and when they do call back maybe three weeks later three months later our door never shuts so it's an opportunity for them to come in see what they need and we make sure that they get connected. Domestic violence is a community issue it knows no boundaries it affects everyone and so for people to be involved it's really important because it shows that they value their community so how can somebody get involved? Well we do offer volunteer opportunities and even though there's COVID and we're really careful with our social distancing we do have somebody that you know is coordinating those volunteers making sure that they're getting connected but in addition to that sister care could always utilize you know some financial assistance because that helps move people through that safety plan and making sure they're focused on their families so for example Thanksgiving is coming up and the Christmas holiday is coming up and we're asking for gift cards at this time just due to the fact that we're trying to minimize everybody's exposure to that and gift cards is an opportunity whether it's from Walmart or gas cards an opportunity for people to kind of purchase the items they need for their family and get back to you know whether it's Christmas shopping or something like that but we will definitely take a financial assistance we definitely have a wish list on our sister care website so if anybody wanted to you know maybe donate some diapers or in reference to cleaning supplies you know actual new linens and towels for someone's home is always so helpful they can go on that website and check out the wish list