Wake County Women’s Center

As you may know, I spent a big chunk of my day yesterday at the Wake County Women’s Center. I woke up bright and early and realized I had no water, and no coffee. I’m a web developer. Coffee is integral to my basic interpersonal and cognitive functions. Translation: I can’t think, listen or speak until I’ve had a cup, on my best day. However, water is integral to my basic functions as a human being. So I went to the HT and grabbed a big jug of water for the week. Stared longingly at the coffee aisle, but at $3.05, my day’s budget was spent. So off I went to the WCWC, to try and stumble through without embarrassing myself.

I have to admit, I had a little anxiety rolling in there. I’m a man, this is a place for women in dire straits, run by women who I would consider fierce, in a very good way. Moreover, I’ve still got this crazy face weasel of a trucker handlebar ‘stashe, leftover from Movember, to raise money for mens’ prostate health. So I’m sure I look extra creepy. I walk in and am welcomed by a spitfire of a woman, the Executive Director of the place. First thing she does is offer me a piping hot cup of black go juice, and I am saved. We then have the most amazing, nearly-hour-long convo that I’ve had in a long time. I got seriously educated. I’m not going to give you her name, because their website doesn’t, and their discretion is of the utmost importance to me. If she tells me later it’s cool, I will tell you. We talked about my project, we talked about her place, the WCWC. We talked about the problems, the possible solutions, and the seemingly impossible walls she breaks down on a daily basis, both with the women she has dedicated her life to helping, and with securing the funds and the help she needs to do it. We talked about politics. We talked about how in the hell she finds the strength to do this for now, 18 years. We talked about their old location, and the current, and the changing face of their clientele. In a nutshell, their clientele is growing and expanding demographically, and that is not a good thing.

Then she showed me around the place. Walking down the hall, she shouted the requisite “Man on the hall!”, to alert staff and clients of my presence. Protocol, for a place where women and their children have found themselves, while fending for themselves, by themselves. I spoke with a couple of her clients, and followed her lead as she listened to their problems with the patience of Job. Then I hunkered down in their donated clothes room and spent the afternoon folding, hanging and sorting the sea of clothes they’d recently received. I felt truly honored and humbled to be in the place. Every member of the staff I encountered exuded the same calmness and kindness – surely a shared character trait in those who choose to spend their lives in the trenches, helping people who so desperately need it.

My takeaway for you from my day at the Wake County Women’s Center is the following:

• They are in critical and chronic need of feminine hygiene products. And bras and underwear. Seriously, go get some of these items and take them over there tomorrow.

• Just because a woman has lost nearly everything, that doesn’t mean she has lost all sense of taste and the desire to look presentable. Don’t donate clothes with stains and holes all over. Would you wear that in its current condition? If it belongs in a rag bag, leave it there. Please donate, donate, donate – I’m just suggesting maybe give items a baseline inspection first.

• These women running and staffing this place are complete badasses.

If you feel like helping their cause, check out their donations page: http://www.wcwc.org/donate.htm

If you feel like donating your time, check out http://www.wcwc.org/volunteer.htm, or give them a call at 919.829.3711

I so strongly encourage you to do so.