SOUTHEAST SORORITIES TO PROMOTE CAPE'S SAFEHOUSE FOR WOMEN

Members of several Southeast Missouri State University sororities will spend their "Service Weekend" posting information from Fruitland to Sikeston about the Safehouse for Women.

About 20 women will be placing stickers bearing the safehouse's name and crisis hotline number on mirrors in women's restrooms in restaurants, public buildings, service stations and convenience stores in the region, said Julie Schroeder, a 20-year-old student and coordinator of the Service Weekend project.

"We're trying to cover Fruitland, Jackson, Cape and Sikeston," Schroeder said. She said volunteers will be cruising the main roads "and just stopping at places until we run out of stickers."

Debra Hamilton, shelter manager, said the stickers are a good way to inform abused women that there is a safe haven for them.

"Usually unless women are obviously abused, unless there are physical scars, we never see them," Hamilton said. "Many women aren't really put in touch with us. That's because until they go to the emergency room or the police become involved, or social services, they don't know we're here."

Statistically, she said, one in seven women are abused, "so we know that there's an entire population that we haven't been able to reach."

Public restrooms are "usually a neutral space," Hamilton said. "A lot of women can't take fliers home and they can't take pamphlets home, because if the abuser sees the women have this information, a lot of times the violence will get worse."

Stickers in the restrooms, she said, are one more way to get the information out to the public.

"We all go in public restrooms sometime," she said.