LAWS Accelerates Social Services With Greenway Help

By Jason S Rufner

Executive Director Sue Curtis and her understudy Nicole Acosta have interesting jobs working for the Loudoun Abused Women's Shelter (commonly known as LAWS), one of five charities benefitting from the Dulles Greenway's annual Drive for Charity fundraising campaign to be held May 17.

The interesting part isn’t that Curtis and Acosta oversee a 27-year-old non-governmental non-profit agency that provides much-needed social services to anyone -- regardless of age or gender -- who's been victimized by domestic or dating violence, stalking, sexual assault or sexual abuse.

It's that their jobs have something in common with those of undercover police or CIA agents: There's a lot they just can’t talk about. Every day, LAWS handles situations that come straight from society's less savory side, making sensitivity a requisite and privacy an imperative.

They can't talk about cases they serve or cite examples of success stories or reveal whereabouts of facilities. The "S" in LAWS stands for "shelter" because that's precisely what those served by LAWS require.

Sadly, many people require such shelter -- a fact the two LAWS executives can talk about.

"There's a misperception that this problem doesn't affect our community as much as it does," said Acosta, a six-year LAWS employee preparing to assume the executive directorship from Curtis in May. "People are surprised when we tell them how many individuals we serve in a year."

Last year that figure was in excess of 1,000 children, women and men, all cases originating in Loudoun County.

"I guarantee if we're serving 1,000, there are many more we're not serving, for any number of reasons," Acosta added somberly.

In her 23-year career with the agency, Curtis has seen that number rise with the population. She's also overseen LAWS as the shelter has risen to meet new challenges, particularly in the wake of the infamous O.J. Simpson trial of the mid-1990s.

"That was like a two-year commercial for our services," Curtis quipped. "We'd realized that there were so many women in the community who needed help that we needed to take this very small shelter-based program and expand our services."

LAWS has been expanding its service capacity since, from counseling to support groups to court advocacy, communicating in English and Spanish. The organization runs several programs, such as the Parent/Child Nurturing Program, the Teen Violence Prevention Program, the Child Advocacy Center and a Crisis Hotline. LAWS boasts a staff of 31 including two attorneys.

Curtis and Acosta can talk about the fact that, unlike the police or CIA, LAWS is a non-governmental entity relying on grant, fundraiser and donation monies to provide necessary services to a growing, diverse and increasingly young Loudoun population.

That's how proceeds from the seventh-annual Drive for Charity – in which LAWS has participated every year – makes its valuable presence felt.

"Money is so critical," Curtis said. "If you're going to do a good job, you have to have good people. So you have to be able to meet the payroll." Acosta added to the comment.

"When you're serving a bigger and bigger number of people with the same amount of money and staff, you have to make sure the quality of services stays top-notch," she said.

Money isn't merely important. The message imparted by Curtis and Acosta is that money is absolutely paramount -- and that's why the Dulles Greenway's substantial contribution to LAWS in each of the past seven years has been so key. Those funds go toward offsetting costs of LAWS' entire operation so the shelter can foster social justice in Loudoun in the years to come.

"This is a huge donation for us," Curtis said. "For those of us who work in non-profits, getting grant money is an arduous task."

She described the daunting paperwork and grueling deadlines associated with applying for assistance from state and federal social welfare agencies, juxtaposing that funding avenue with the Greenway.

"But the wonderful people at the Greenway collect this money and write us a check," the executive director said. "It's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful."

Ironically, if LAWS can demonstrate that the community supports it, that fact bolsters their chances of earning grants. The Dulles Greenway's Drive for Charity donation is a large factor in that demonstration of community support.

"Even though the grants are a larger portion of our income, we wouldn't be able to get those without this help from the Greenway," Acosta said.