Fair Haven Rape Crisis Center General Support

"Happy Holidays" is a wonderfully appropriate greeting this time of year. There are 14 holidays celebrated in the month of December! As we strive to create a homey and comfortable atmosphere for our clients, a priority is festive decorating to bring joy and ensure the office is merry & bright.

At Fair Haven Rape Crisis Center, we understand the holiday season can be extra difficult for clients dealing with sexual trauma. This stress can be multiplied by the pressure of providing gifts when some of our clients are financially unable to do so. In 2013, Fair Haven together with local partners, created a solution called the "Guiding Star Project". Through the generous giving of our local partners, churches, agencies, businesses, organizations and private citizens, we can also ensure that our clients' hearts can feel a little merry & bright too. This project is offered to all clients with children and to the families of clients that are children and adolescents. Don't worry, confidentiality is key and every family participating is assigned an anonymous code to pair with their wishes.

The "Guiding Star Project" name was chosen from a scripture in the Holy Bible; Matthew 2:2 "Where is he who is born King of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him." As a faith-based organization, we identify Jesus is the Christ, yet open our arms and extend our services to all people; regardless of gender, race, religious belief, ability, demographic, socioeconomic status, ect. One of our biggest supporters in the project is a local church that requests 80-100 stars and generously sponsors the gifts and continues to receive our stars every year since 2013. The tree is placed in the foyer, the stars are hung with care and the congregation choose stars to  'adopt'. They keep the stars to pray for the participants and the send the gifts to the agency.

We give thanks to all our supporters that empower our agency to provide the best care and services to our clients. We are especially thankful to experience and see, first hand, what kind of impact your generous support actually makes in the life of a survivor of sexual assault. Those are the moments that empower our victim advocates in feeling merry & bright in the work we do.

Wishing you a very "Happy Holidays", with a prayer that you can feel merry & bright this season as the New Year 2022 begins!