What a Gift Card Can Do

The WCA’s mission of helping everyone achieve safety, healing, and freedom from domestic violence and sexual assault aims to empower the clients served through the programming and shelter services.

A key way of empowering those who have survived abuse in many forms is giving them the tools to make their own decisions and take control of their lives again. An abuser’s goal is to gain power and control over the victim, meaning that many of the clients at the WCA may not have been able to do something as simple as pick out the groceries they wanted or buy new clothes for themselves. Many of us take these seemingly simple actions for granted.

The WCA runs many programs that help clients get back on their feet, including Back to School and Holiday Sponsorship programs. These sponsorships help ease the burden on current clients during those stressful times. One item always needed for these sponsorships is gift cards!

While gift cards may not seem as glamorous as donating a new toy to the Holiday Sponsorship, they give our clients that chance to exercise their own purchasing power and take control of making decisions for their family. Rather than being handed a toy, they are handed an opportunity to choose a toy for their child or to buy themselves a new outfit.

We also love to encourage the donation of a gift card that can be used for an experience that a family can share together. Some family-friendly activity ideas could be a gift card to a movie theater, bowling & shoe rental, JumpTime or other trampoline park, Wahooz, the Discovery Center, admission to the World Center for Birds of Prey, etc. A gift card that provides a family an experience to enjoy together is the gift of a happy family memory for our clients to make together.

A gift card can…

-help a client purchase gas to drive to job training at Create Common Good.

-give a mom the funds to purchase the Christmas present only she knows her child really wants.

-help a shelter resident buy groceries to prepare healthy meals for her and her children.

-let mom pick out school clothes for her kids, possibly for the first time.

-give mom the pride of being able to actually purchase a toy for her son for Christmas.

-help mom rest easy knowing she will be able to help her son pick out new clothes for school.

-give a client the opportunity to buy her own clothes, which she couldn’t do in her abusive relationship because her partner controlled what she wore and what she bought.

-help a client give some gas money to friend who picks her up from work to help her feel safer.

-lets mom sleep at night instead of worrying how she will pay for groceries this week.

-mean that mom doesn’t have to worry about where gas money for the drive to her child’s doctor’s appointment will come from.

-let mom buy her daughter that new graphing calculator for school without having to use the money she’s saving for their new apartment.

Please consider donating a gift card to the WCA to help us further empower our clients in their journeys to safety, healing, and freedom!

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