About Our Organization

Women Aware began in Sioux City, IA in 1979 in response to the nationwide phenomenon of homemakers displaced by divorce, widowhood, societal trends, and economic pressures. The goal then, as it is now, was to provide a supportive, instructional environment in which to resolve overwhelming emotional and economic problems and transition into greater economic independence and self-sufficiency. Our services concentrate on issues of self-confidence, management of household dynamics and finances, job preparation and increased earning capacity. Changes in family structure and economic climate have made our networking approach to problem-solving extremely useful to a much wider range of individuals in poverty, including homeless individuals, blended families, and single parent fathers.  Our mission is: "Women Aware … Empowers those facing challenges to gain access to services, transitioning them to a more hopeful and stable future.” What started as a loose knit group of women who met at Riverside Park to offer support to one another while discussing common issues evolved over time, and a small non profit that receives no state or federal funds, we continue that work today, doing great things on a small budget, helping people's dreams become their reality. 

 

 

 The Women's Co-Op: Women Aware, Women Who Care.

Women Aware is starting a Co-Op!?!? A rent and utilities Co-Op??? What nonsense is this??

Read on and learn about our little project that keeps giving BIG even after the BIG GIVE!

Ever found yourself in a pinch where the rent man is at your door, and the boss man won't be giving you a check for another week? Or that moment when you're about to turn on the tap to wash dishes, and the city utility worker has other plans for you and is in your front lawn shutting off your water? At various points in our lives, many of us have been in difficult situations like these, an unexpected bill comes due, or maybe in the chaos of life the ball gets dropped, and suddenly we're faced with the reality that our basic needs of shelter and utilities are at risk and the shut off is happening when in reality, we'd be able to pay the bill with our next paycheck, and we find ourself a few dollars short, and a few days late, risking catastrophic upheaval in the process.

 

The destabilizing event then occurs when we can't come up with the funds fast enough, the lights or water get shut off, and we find that now we're not only paying the bill, but the additional turn on fees from our next check. In the meantime we're left wondering... will the neighbors see the neon sign showing that my water is shut off? Will someone turn me into DHS because my kids are going to a home with no electricity/running water? Where will we stay if we get kicked out of our apartment and the shelter is full? When in reality for some of these situations, if they had just been given until their next paycheck, none of these things would be a concern. The struggle is real, and we’re all too familiar with it at Women Aware, receiving calls on a daily basis from families in need of assistance on items like these. Many a result of circumstances outside of their control, and unexpected life turns. 

 

To those donors and individuals familiar with the network of service providers in our area, you are already aware that it is very unlikely that you will find a service provider that helps with water bills, and for those that help with utilities and rent, it’s very difficult to find agencies and groups that currently have funding to help with these items. Those needing help are forced to call a myriad of places, on what feels like a never ending search for assistance, often on a time crunch, causing them to be spending precious, only to be informed “we’re out of funds”, “we don’t help with that” etc. The network of assistance is a patchwork that changes with the seasons, funding cycles, and staff; those needing help for the first time in some of situations are often unsure of where to even begin looking for help. Some resort to placing these items on credit cards, lines of credit, and cash advance loans with high interest rates, which cause the initial expense to end up costing them even more in the long run, for funds that they were already struggling with.

 

The old slogan of “you should have saved for that” or "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" hits differently when we start facing the real life circumstances of many in Siouxland. The national poverty rate is 11.6%, and in Woodbury County we have a rate of 15.5%; at Women Aware, as an agency 88% of the clients we serve have a gross annual household income of $0-$24,999; if these are the realities of the families that are making contact with Women Aware, how do trends such as inflation, cost of living increases, and increases in food costs etc impact our clients and the community at large? Often it means that money originally meant for saving is used to get by and cover the difference. Per Forbes Advisor, when we look at various generations, nearly a third of Generation Z, Millennials, and Generation X have under $1,000 in Savings, including emergency funds; with the increase in rent prices in our communities, this means that many would not have enough in savings to cover their rent for a month. Women Aware's programs do not have any income restrictions when it comes to assistance, so we have the ability to help people across the spectrum. You can make good money but still fall on hard times, and we understand the complexities in life, and want to be there to help people in their time of need. 

 

Given these realities and the work that our agency does every day and the first hand knowledge that this experience gives our agency, we developed the inspiration for starting a Women’s Co-Op. Since 1979 Women Aware has served our community as a resource center, empowering our clients to be the best that they can be, and by stepping into the fold to be with them, helps create action plans to address their needs and help them navigate to better futures. Often our action plans would include providing them with a list of possible places to call to see if they can find help, and staff picking up the phone to call agencies, churches, and donors on a clients behalf to ask, beg, and plead for assistance, because as one client recently informed staff: “My lights get shut off at 4pm, but my kids will still need to eat supper.” We wondered what would happen if we administered a Co-Op that worked with our clients to recycle funds to address these items, cut down on navigating the patchwork, and created the potential for individuals to learn other life skills in the process, and give back and help those that come in after them in need of similar help? What if "pay it forward" wasn’t just at the drive through line in Starbucks, but also for the single mom that comes after you that also needs help with a water bill in a pinch? In the past our organization like other non-profits and agencies has applied for grants through various programs to provide rent and utility assistance to Clients (MRHD, Sisters Of St Francis-Dubuque, United Way of Siouxland, Siouxland Relief Fund, etc.), and once the funds have been distributed to clients, the program is over, creating an unsustainable form of giving. Soliciting donations from donors helps, but at times the need is more than what the community can give, and funding opportunities for direct financial assistance like this can be limited.

 

What would that Co-Op look like? How would a it work? Trust Issues Anyone? What if we told you that we’ve already given it a spin? Currently out of funds for water assistance, Women Aware recently had a single mother from a small town in Woodbury County call up and explain that she’d called various other agencies already with no luck in helping with her water bill, and her $120 water bill had been shut off as of Thursday, and she would not get paid from her employer until the following Tuesday, meaning that she would have to go the entire weekend with no running water and three children at home. The mother confirmed her employment and that she would have originally had the funds to pay the bill come Tuesday, and when asked, would she be able to pay back the amount if Women Aware could find a donor to temporarily lend the funds to pay to get her water turned back on for the weekend? The mother said yes, and Women Aware’s yes to her and her children put into practice our values of believing in and lifting up others. A donor was located, her water got turned back on, and the following Wednesday when the mother came back into our office and paid her bill amount in full, when we explained that it would then go back to help someone else that found themselves in need like her, she started crying, because someone believed in her and she would now be helping someone else down the road. She explained that her city had left a neon sign on her door, so all of her neighbors would know that her water had been shut off, and the fear that came with the knowledge of her neighbors seeing it.

 

What if her story wasn’t the end, but the beginning? That $120 water bill, will go on to help the next person in a pinch, and when it comes back, the next person after that; no longer waiting on a new grant, large donor, or another fundraiser, the same set of funds just keeps getting borrowed and returned, borrowed and returned, helping people in need. Sounds better than buying a stranger coffee doesn’t it? You kept the lights on for their kids to take a bath, for them to do homework, to cook a meal, for their parents to peacefully rest and get ready for their next day at work knowing it will be okay. We have secured a matching donation for the launch of this project through the Big Give from "the friends of Barb Wingert" and matching contributions of $1054 from several of our board members to provide us with “seed money” totaling $2,307.00 that our agency will use to start The Women’s Co-Op at Women Aware. Creating the opportunity for our clients to get the help they need, work with our staff, and help those that come after them, continuing helping others up the ladder to financial success.

Women Aware is open to anyone, with no restrictions for who can be a client, those needing assistance with items such as water bills, gas and electric bills, and rent assistance would meet with our resource counselor to review their circumstances and create and action plan together, and review the financial feasibility of the person's ability to pay back the amount loaned to them for one time assistance, clients would need to demonstrate an achievable action plan that demonstrated the ability to pay their micro loan back into the co-op; once this is reviewed and approved, an interest free re-payment plan would be agreed upon between the agency and the client, and assistance would be administered to the utility company or landlord in question, and as the client pays those funds loaned back into the Co-Op account, the funds could then be lent back out interest free to the next person in need. As a resource center, Women Aware works with various agencies in the community to help address the needs of clients, so our focus would be in providing assistance primarily on water bills as these are often not covered by other programs and funding sources. By working with staff and doing a comprehensive intake with Women Aware as part of this process, we’d ensure that clients needing help that may qualify for other programs such as Section 8, or LHEAP or receiving the proper referrals to help ensure that that they able to build a solid foundation for future success. Our work with clients can vary from one interaction to a series of appointments over a span of time to address concerns, and sometimes what brings them in the door, may not be the only item that we end up working with them on as a result of our client first focus. Our hope in creating this program, is to develop a model that can then be shared with other agencies, not only within our community, but in other parts of the country to help create a sustainable model for crisis intervention that helps create community based involvement in creating solutions.

 

Our clients take risks every day, and some will look at our program and say that a donation to something like this is a total risk. Banks and Credit Lenders take the same risk every day when they let you swipe your card and charge something, the difference is that we won’t be charging you, or our clients interest in the process of taking our risk with this Co-Op. It’s a people first project designed to help create better futures for people here in Siouxland, and we are leading by example as an agency, by telling our clients that we believe in them enough to give them a fighting chance for the future. Our hope is that with the Co-Op we can match the funds we received and raise $2,307.00 from the Big Give to provide Women Aware with $4,614 to use with clients to start the Co-Op. This has the potential then continue on for as long as people continue to return what they're loaned, the potential to grow as we receive more donations from other groups such as churches or individuals, and also not have the concern of a grant period ending, funding not renewing etc.

We realize we’re not for everyone, and this may have been a lot to take in, but we hope that you can see the good in what we are setting out to do at Women Aware, and that we do a lot with a little. Our Big Give project helps fill in crucial gaps in our community, and you can choose to be a part of our story and the lives of our clients in donating October 1st.

 

Thank You For Your Time, Consideration, and Donation, 

Women Aware

 

“Women Aware empowers those facing challenges to gain access to services, transitioning them to a more hopeful and stable life.”

 

P.S.

In case you’re curious, and data driven in making your contributions. As an agency we serve both women and men, and there families. Here is what some of our data looks like on an average year:

Serving 230+ families and individuals within a year with a small staff and total agency budget of less than $120,000 annually

88% of clients have a gross household income of $0-24,999 per year

93% of clients reside in Woodbury County, but we serve the tristate area, and residence is not a restriction, with clients coming from north of Le Mars and rural Nebraska and South Dakota for assistance.

In regard to our demographic break downs:

15% of those served identify as Native American

17% African American

7% Hispanic

5% multi-race

53% Caucasian

1% Asian

2% Unreported 

 

Women Aware

505 5th Street #422
Sioux City, IA 51101
 
(712) 258-4174

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