By TYLER SIPE
The State News
More students are needed to help area residents in crisis this semester.
MSU Safe Place, an on-campus domestic violence shelter, is looking for anyone who can volunteer two to four hours a week. Safe Place is setting up a training seminar beginning Jan. 19 at Wilson Hall.
Volunteer coordinator Angie Kelleher said the program may be short on volunteers this semester but she hopes more will sign up.
“Volunteers get a chance to meet and work with people in tough situations,” Kelleher said. “Volunteers become more aware of their own life and appreciate it a little more.”
The program started out with high enthusiasm from students, university staff and professors willing to volunteer after the shelter was showcased in The Associated Press, People Magazine and Entertainment Weekly for being the first domestic violence shelter on a college or university campus.
Jennifer Trotter, a three-year volunteer and recent MSU graduate, said it takes empathy, listening and an open mind to be a good volunteer at the center.
“Being a psychology major gave me a lot of research experience and Safe Place brought the human face to my work,” she said.
Trotter, now an intern at the shelter, added that she gets self-fulfillment by helping the domestic violence victims.
Safe Place still remains the only domestic violence shelter at an education institution. It houses an average of five to nine people a day, who can stay at the facility for up to 45 days.
In 1993, the year before first Lady Joanne McPherson opened Safe Place opened, more then 200 area victims of domestic violence had no place else to go.
Since then, Safe Place volunteers have helped provide child care, assist in crisis intervention and educate more than 12,000 people each year through community education programs.
Without volunteers like Trotter, the shelter’s cause is lost, said Holly Rosen, director of the shelter. Safe Place has 35 to 50 volunteers at any given time, she said.
Rosen estimates that Safe Place protects and assists 100 victims a year, and of those, one-third of the victims are MSU staff members, one-third are victims not affiliated with the university, one-fourth are students and a few are faculty members.
“Domestic violence is a hidden problem people don’t realize is happening,” Rosen said. “Studies show that between 25 percent to 30 percent of high school and college students are victims of domestic violence.
“That statistic means that approximately 11,000 to 15,000 students at MSU would have experienced domestic violence.”
For more information, contact MSU Safe Place at 355-1100, extension 2, e-mail the program at noabuse@msu.edu or visit its Web site at www.msu.edu/~safe.
