This article was published on Monday, January 21, 2008 7:34 PM CST in News
By Richard Dean Prudenti
THE MORNING NEWS
BENTONVILLE -- Wal-Mart donated $2.5 million to the Northwest Arkansas Children's Shelter to supplement an endowment that will subsidize operating expenses for a new center.
The Wal-Mart donation announced Monday launches a public fundraising campaign called "Give Every Child A Chance to Heal."
The nonprofit organization was established in 1993 and serves about 300 children annually, providing emergency shelter, education and counseling services for children who are victims of child abuse, sexual abuse and domestic violence.
"This is one of those things you wish a community didn't have to have. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have this," said Susan Duke, a member of the Children's Shelter board.
The shelter hopes to raise a little more than $9 million, partly for an endowment and partly to construct two long-term group homes for 16 children -- eight boys and eight girls.
By state law, the organization can serve a child no longer than 45 days.
The group homes are a part of a larger complex planned on an 81-acre tract off Vaughn Road, two miles west of the current building in west Bentonville.
Organization officials want also to construct an emergency shelter building and a wellness center in 2009.
Duke has helped many children in the past whose families were in crisis.
"(Children's) little voices are not always heard, which is why we as adults need to be their voice," she said, calling the Children's Shelter a "hands-on" organization that provides stability and love to children.
Through the years, Duke has helped more than 15 children while also working with the Court-Appointed Special Advocates organization. She called her role "standing in the gap" to help both children and parents to create stability. She reports to Benton County Circuit Judge Jay Finch.
Referring to the children's shelter, Duke said, "This is where my children first come." Her husband, Mike Duke, is vice chairman of Wal-Mart, and together they are honorary co-chairmen of the shelter's capital campaign.
The Children's Shelter serves girls through age 17 and boys through age 12 by providing shelter and schooling.
"This provides children consistent care in education because a lot of times there is no focus at home on their education," said David Atwood, president of the children's shelter board of directors.
The organization hopes to build a complex that eventually doubles the number of children served, said Tim Nichols, the organization's executive director.
For every child the shelter serves, three have to be turned away because of space constraints. Those children are placed in foster homes or other places throughout the state.
The shelter must turn away about 800 children a year.
"The purpose is not to turn away children," said Tregg Brown, a member of the capital campaign committee.
Brown said expanding programs and increasing space would enable the shelter to serve more than the current maximum of 32 children as well as limit the separation of siblings.
FAST FACT
Who's Using The Service?
About 60 percent of children at Northwest Arkansas Children's Shelter are from Benton and Washington counties.
Source: Northwest Arkansas Children's Shelter
When the new Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in Columbia earlier this fall, it provided job opportunities for more than 200 people...
