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Groups' efforts boost women's shelters

Project Manager Nancy Kasenic works on plans for the remodel as Nonprofit Development Corp Community Builders group fixes up a house on Fairview Avenue in Butler.

Women escaping the streets, a bad relationship or drug addiction need shelter. But a house is not a home, as the saying goes, and many women find getting back on their feet easier in furnished surroundings.

That's the idea behind the Soroptimist International of Butler County's “A Place to Lay My Head” project that improves apartments used by women needing a temporary place to live.

Started two years ago by Soroptimist President Diane Dancik, the club works with county organizations to provide furniture, appliances and household items for apartments housing women in transition.

Dancik said helping women in the county is the club's purpose.

“I was appalled to find out women and children were sleeping on floors in Butler County,” said Dancik.

“A Place to Lay My Head” has been working with the Lighthouse Foundation which owns or rents 18 apartments for people in transition.

Cindy Cipoletti, executive director of the Lighthouse Foundation, said, “We have a few different facilities. We have five units for single-parent families. We have six units for single- or two-parent families. And then we have four units for single women 18 to 29 and three units for single men, 18 to 29,” she said.

“The facility that the Soroptimists helped us out with is on Kaufman Drive in Butler,” Cipoletti said. “These are townhomes.”

“They (the Soroptimists) supply the furniture. They went in and decorated it and just made it beautiful,” said Cipoletti.

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