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Dr. Claire Lodahl, a beneficiary of the Women’s Resource Center ‘microloan’ program, raises her patient, Bonnie, onto an elevating inspection table at her veterinary clinic, Kindness Animal Hospital./Photo by Steve Eginoire
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Helping women help themselves
Women’s Resource Center celebrates 25th anniversary
by Jen Reeder
More than a decade ago, Durango resident Claire Lodahl was a practicing veterinarian with three young girls. Then a terrible car crash turned her life upside down.
More than a decade ago, Durango resident Claire Lodahl was a practicing veterinarian with three young girls. Then a terrible car crash turned her life upside down.
“I broke my back, my neck, four ribs, my head and my knee. I had multiple serious injuries and I spent about a year in bed. With three kids!” Lodahl says.
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When she was physically and emotionally ready to start working again in 2006, she was a single mother with four children and no capital with which to start her own practice. So she started looking for a loan and soon discovered no bank would approve her.
“It was a very uncomfortable experience, being basically a very experienced person with 20 years of practice and so forth,” Lodahl says. “It’s funny, but you have to have some money for people to want to give you money.”
Then a friend suggested she contact the Women’s Resource Center to see if she could get a loan through their “microloan” program, which offers small loans to female entrepreneurs. After completing the application process, she was given a $5,000 loan – long since paid off. That loan was a springboard to other institutions lending her money and eventually she was able to open Kindness Animal Hospital, which served about 2,200 different pets in 2011.
“That was really the whole beginning of what is now a flourishing veterinary clinic, and I don’t know if it ever would have happened without them,” Lodahl says. “The support and the fact that they didn’t judge me because I was a single mother and that I had been out of work for awhile and that I was struggling with difficult circumstances that were beyond my control … it made all the difference.”
Lodahl is just one of many women who has been helped by the Women’s Resource Center, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this month. The nonprofit was founded in 1987 by 15 women committed to helping women in Southwest Colorado attain economic self-sufficiency. They held a forum that concluded women needed access to resources that already existed in the community. So the Women’s Resource Center, or WRC, organized a resource directory that has continued to grow for 25 years.
“We really can say that we have the most up-to-date book of resources in the county,” says Liz Mora, WRC’s executive director.
Essentially, any woman in the community can call or walk into WRC and the staff will listen to their situation and inform them about opportunities that exist, whether provided by an independent agency or WRC itself.
“The center has remained true to its mission to be a center where women can walk in anytime they need help and find it,” says Deborah Uroda, director of marketing and fund development. “We run the gamut from those folks who are facing homelessness to those folks who are willing to recreate their lives as an entrepreneur.”
Uroda said there is a continuing need for the Women’s Resource Center because the income disparity between men and women is still great. For example, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Region 9 Economic Development District, the median salary in 2010 for all men working both full and part time in La Plata County was $52,111, while it was just $29,973 for women.
“In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need us,” Uroda says. “But the bottom line is that women still haven’t achieved economic equality.”
To that end, WRC offers workshops, pro se (do-it-yourself) divorce seminars, microloans, scholarships, vouchers for local thrift stores, and innovative programs like a 30-minute mentorship program, which pairs “experts” with women seeking career advice ranging from resume writing and job hunts to financial planning and bookkeeping.
Barbara Shore, an 81-year-old who has volunteered at WRC for at least 15 years, says she’s witnessed the organization grow and change over the years, 4 including the addition of basic services like offering computers for public use.
“We’ve always had the phone available, but it’s so wonderful to have the computers available for writing resumes and looking up jobs that are available,” Shore says. “I’m not planning to quit until they shove me out the door.”
Another sign of growth: expanding services to include men. Durango resident Daniel Wiggins – who was raised by a single mother – is currently the only man on the WRC Board of Directors, and he hopes to see more men get involved, either by becoming members, volunteering at fund-raising events like Men Who Grill, leading workshops about auto mechanics and other traditionally male-dominated activities, or even seeking help.
“A lot of times I think there’s the impression in the community that it’s just for women, or men aren’t really involved, but that’s not the case,” Wiggins says. “The Women’s Resource Center not only supports women but it supports families.”
The wide net of people helped by WRC now includes more than 800 a year, such as small business owners like McCarson Jones, owner of Red Scarf Shots, a photography studio. Jones received a $5,000 microloan several years ago in order to update her equipment and invest in marketing.
“It was an affordable payback … I did some upgrades for my photography business and with that upgrade came even more business,” Jones says.
The Women’s Resource Center also gives help that never needs to be repaid, as it did with a Womanade grant to Anjoletta Krug. The 25-year-old Durango resident has faced numerous challenges since she moved here a few years ago with her children and now-husband from Arizona. The move was sudden: Krug had been in an abusive relationship, and her ex-boyfriend’s family sent her to the emergency room.
“I came out this way to recover,” Krug says.
After working full-time at a local restaurant while raising her three children and stepson, Krug decided to enroll at Pueblo Community College to get her associate degree in applied science through the EMT program. However, her mother suddenly died this winter, and shortly after, she got a letter from PCC stating in order to start classes in January of 2012, she needed a CPR certification, immunizations, drug test, background check and other necessities that would cost around $360. Though her husband was working full time, she knew her family couldn’t afford it. Then she spoke with Christy Schaerer, programs coordinator at WRC, who told her to come to the center.
“They were so patient and understanding,” Krug says. “It’s a hard world I guess, but Women’s Resource Center is there if you need them.”
The center gave Krug the money she needed, as well as vouchers for a local thrift store and time on the office computer to fill out forms. She completed all of the certifications and tests she needed by the deadline and is now a student at PCC.
“The No. 1 issue for the women that we see who are in crisis is they don’t have an education,” Uroda says. “That’s where we’re focused.”
So last year, WRC endowed $25,000 to the Fort Lewis College Foundation to send a first generation La Plata County high school girl to attend the college each year. And just in time for its 25th anniversary, the Women’s Resource Center will begin accepting applications for the new Education Opportunity Fund to help women pay for educational opportunities that will help move them closer to self-sufficiency.
“That’s how we feel we can stay another 25 years, by going for the preventative piece and being a source for assistance to help women get educated,” says Executive Director Mora. “We’re still here and stronger than ever.”
For more information, call 247-1242, stop by 679 E. Second Ave., Unit 6, or visit www.wrcdurango.org.