PORT ANGELES — Healthy Families of Clallam County will bring holiday cheer to survivors of domestic violence Saturday.
The group’s fourth annual “Family Day of Christmas” gives some of the children and adults who are enrolled in its support programs the opportunity to pick out donated gifts.
Eight families, made up of 22 children and 10 adults, will pick out gifts at the Healthy Families office at 1210 E. Front St., Port Angeles, said event coordinator Beverly Hoffman.
Healthy Families Executive Director Becca Korby said the purpose of the event is to give the families the Christmas they deserve.
Rebuilding lives
“The families we are working with are struggling,” she said. “Many of them are rebuilding their lives after the devastating effects of domestic violence, family violence, sexual violence.
“They are people who have as much right to have a joyous holiday” as anyone, she added.
Family Day of Christmas is one of three events that Healthy Families puts on to provide gifts for those they help.
Other events
Donated gifts will also be distributed during the week before Christmas to 72 children and 45 adults as part of “Holiday Joy,” Hoffman said, and on Christmas Day itself, gifts will be delivered to the five families who reside at the Rose House, a Healthy Families shelter.
Last year, $13,000 in gifts were donated in all, Hoffman said.
While the numbers haven’t been tallied this year, Hoffman and Korby said they expect donations to match or exceed that amount.
Donations
Hoffman said four organizations — Blue Bills, Sunshiners at Sunland, Soroptimist International of Sequim and Grand Olympic Chorus — have donated gifts, along with 20 families.
Korby said that Healthy Families staff as well as the families themselves look forward to these events every year.
“This program gives our staff who work all year long an opportunity to sit back and watch this community do what it does at its finest,” she said, “which is to embrace those who are . . . in need.”
Between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2009, Health Families sheltered 107 women, four men and 59 children, Korby said.
During the same time period, there were 421 domestic violence and sexual assault clients with Healthy Families. Seventy-three sexual assault clients and 120 domestic violence clients received therapy from the nonprofit organization.
Healthy Families can be contacted at 360-452-3811. Its 24-hour crisis line is 360-452-4357.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
