Ways You Can Help

Volunteer Opportunities

The Shelter offers many volunteer opportunities for those in the community interested in helping with this important issue. Volunteer programs include:

Answering the 24-hour hotline
Assisting with the staffing of the emergency shelter
Facilitating children's programs
Providing a pet-safe home for victim's pets
Helping with special events and fundraisers
Assisting with clean-up days and maintenance projects
Helping with transportation

All volunteers must complete some level of training. The Shelter offers a full volunteer training session three times a year and also provides individual training on an as-needed basis. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please contact our Volunteer Coordinator by email or by phone at (434) 963-4676.

Other ways you can help include making a tax-deductible donation to the Shelter or purchasing support materials that raise funds for the Shelter. Monetary donations can be made by check and sent to: Shelter for Help in Emergency, P.O. Box 3013, Charlottesville, VA 22903. Please click on any of the links on the left for more information.

What You Can Do to Enact Change

Learn more about issues related to domestic and sexual violence. Read books and articles, attend lectures, watch educational television shows.

Evaluate your own language, beliefs and attitudes about traditional gender roles, roles in relationships, and the issues of domestic and sexual violence as a whole.

Address uniformed remarks and offensive jokes that you may hear from other people. Re-educate people, or let them know that you are not tolerant of their behaviors.

Do not support movies, television shows or other forms of mass media that portray eroticized violence against women and children.

Write letters to newspapers, magazines, companies and politicians expressing your support or concerns about their practices.

Model respectful behavior for children.

Be supportive of people who are survivors of domestic or sexual violence. Do not practice victim-blaming.

Support organizations and legislation that empower people in our society who are most vulnerable to domestic and sexual violence.