When Soroptimist International of La Jolla applied in May 2005 for a $10,000 grant from its national office, the members were keeping their fingers crossed they’d get approved.
What they weren’t anticipating was obtaining their initial goal of providing the Center for Community Solutions (CCS) with computers and career-oriented software and still having money to spare for a second project.
They also didn’t expect to win first place among 100 other Southern California and Arizona Soroptimist groups for their work, according to Lisa Lindgren, club president.
“We were real excited,” she said about receiving the honor at the international organization’s regional spring conference. “They kept it a secret. It was a big surprise, and we all felt great about it.”
Since its inception in 1947, La Jolla Soroptimists has worked to improve the lives of women and girls on both local and global levels. The group recognized that CCS, a nonprofit that assists victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, had goals matching its own and decided to pool its efforts to help women and children get back on their feet, Lindgren said.
In order to do that, La Jolla Soroptimists teamed up with the Futures Foundation of San Diego, which donated two sets of Dell desktop computers for two of CCS’s transitional homes in Escondido.
The homes are meant to give women, children and sometimes men a place to live for up to 18 months while searching for jobs and housing. By giving women access to the Internet and other computer technology, their chances of finding stable work and home environments increase, Lindgren said.
Laurine Baxter, director of residential services at CCS, has seen just how much the Soroptimists have impacted CCS’s homes and shelters.
“It’s just really been a godsend for us and for the women there ” for themselves personally and for their children,” Baxter said. “It just came out of the blue to us, and it really was a gift from the Soroptimists. They are a wonderful organization and have lots of loving, caring women who come together and give of themselves without any strings attached. They just want to give back to the community.”
Although the Soroptimists had to buy the computer software and desks, Staples in Pacific Beach gave the group discounts, and so it ended up only spending a small portion of the grant, Lindgren said.
In early 2006, the group went back to Soroptimists of America to amend its initial proposal and provide additional computers and equipment to several of CCS’s shelters.
As a result, now eight of the organization’s shelters in the beach communities are equipped with computer learning stations, Lindgren said.
Some of the money from the grant was also set aside for education and training, according to Baxter, who said the Soroptimists provided a well-received full-day job advice seminar for the women in the shelters and transitional homes.
The computers have also been beneficial to women who are searching for jobs and trying to get their lives back on track as well as for their children, who often need to write papers and do online research for classes, according to Baxter.
“It’s such a tremendous asset, because before, these kids would have to go to the library to do their homework, and now it gives them the opportunity to do it from home,” she said. “It kind of gives them a boost or a hand up to help them move on with their lives.”
The computers have been so helpful that CCS plans to continue the program and reserve funding to replace hard drives on computers at the transitional homes as residents come and go, Baxter said.
As for the La Jolla Soroptimists Club, it couldn’t be more pleased that its work has made such a difference in the lives of many women in the community, according to Lindgren.
She compared the CCS project with another long-term commitment the group has with helping women in Afghanistan by providing them with marketable skills and emotional support through a pen-pal system.
The Soroptimists will donate the remainder of the CCS grant, an additional $1,000, with the intention that the organization can set up a continuing education fund for women who want to take classes or improve their business skills, according to Lindgren.
“We want to encourage them, and let them know that there is a bigger world than where they are and that somebody cares,” she said.
For more information about the Soroptimists International of La Jolla, visit www.silj.org or send e-mail to [email protected].
For more information about San Diego’s Center for Community Solutions, contact the office, (858) 272-5777.