St. Jude House Purple Purse Campaign Raises Nearly $6,000 To Help Break the Cycle of Domestic Violence

St. Jude House Purple Purse Campaign Raises Nearly $6,000 To Help Break the Cycle of Domestic Violence

St. Jude House is an essential organization in Crown Point, providing shelter and support to survivors of domestic violence. This past October, they participated in the 2018 Allstate Foundation Purple Purse Challenge and successfully raised $5,850 to help them continue providing safe shelter, food, support groups, and empowerment programs for survivors of domestic violence.

The Purple Purse Challenge is a nationwide endeavor, featuring tennis player Serena Williams as the program ambassador. This was the fifth year of the campaign, with more than $10 million raised since 2014. St. Jude House’s huge success this year made them one of nearly 200 nationwide 2018-2019 Allstate Foundation Purple Purse Premier Partners, with the 2018 amount more than doubling what was raised in the prior two years of this challenge

“All of our services are at absolutely no cost to our clients, so any time there’s an opportunity to raise dollars it’s critical,” said Ryan Elinkowski, Director at St. Jude House. “I like to refer to us as a ‘true’ nonprofit since at no time do we charge any money. A fundraiser like this is absolutely vital since every dollar we raise goes right back to our clients.”

At the end of the event, each participating organization draws from the donors that contributed at least $25 and awards one of them a literal purple purse, designed by Serena Williams. This time, the lucky and proud donor was Sherri Latka of St. John. The idea behind the Purple Purse Challenge is that a purse represents a whole lot more than fashion sense.

St-Jude-House-Purple-Purse-2018-2“A purse is symbolic of a woman’s financial domain,” said a statement from Vicky Dinges, Allstate’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Relations. “We’re thrilled Serena Williams embraced this idea when she designed this practical, everyday bag for the 2018 Purple Purse campaign.”

Every year, the funds and publicity raised by the campaign help to raise awareness about domestic violence around communities across America. St. Jude House was proud to play a part in that initiative.

“The Allstate Foundation Purple Purse Challenge is a critical fundraising initiative for our organization as the donations are vital to our efforts to help as many women and families affected by domestic violence as we can,” said Carol Highsmith, Chair on the St. Jude House Board of Directors. “With the collective community rallying behind our organization now and throughout the year, it also shows survivors that they’re not alone in their journeys to break the cycle of abuse.”

For Elinkowski, seeing the strong outpour of community support is almost as important as the money raised because it helps people gain a more complete understanding of their mission.

“I think that my vision for the future is to let everyone know what we do and how special it is for our clients,” he said. “We have people that are leaving domestic violence situations of all kinds, physical, emotional, and financial. We’re working on educating people on all these forms of violence to help people leave those traumatic situations and become survivors.”

Learn more about St. Jude House and their mission at stjudehouse.org.