YW Housing Program rooms get updates

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Like the Ohio Department of Transportation’s Adopt-A-Highway program, which provides manpower to help clean up stretches of Ohio’s highways, the YWCA of Van Wert County’s Adopt-A-Room project also had a specific purpose: to help update the YWCA’s 18 rooms used to house those in the Transitional Housing and Domestic Violence programs at the YW.

The response to the program was terrific, with businesses, organizations and individuals sponsoring one or more of the rooms to renovate the livin

g areas, including living and dining rooms used by women and children in the two housing programs.

Sponsors for the YWCA’s Adopt-A-Room project include Van Wert Federal Savings Bank, Max and Ilo Mercer and family, Scott and Cara Lee Campbell, Woodforest Bank, Eileen Lucier, Karli Turnwald and family, First Federal Savings & Loan, Van Wert Rotary Club, YWCA Board of Directors, Amy Johns, Pamela Jewel-Rusk, Trinity United Methodist Church’s Sunday school program, First Bank of Berne, the Van Wert Walmart store, Heidi Arney, Beth Bauer, Jill Welch and Judy Huebner.

“The amount of time, money and effort that these groups and individuals have put towards our housing program makes a world of difference,” said Chelli Gamble, case manager and coordinator of the Adopt-A-Room project.

“Their (residents’) bedroom is really the only private space they have to go,” Gamble added. “Now they can retreat to a comfortable, homey and inviting area.”

The room makeovers included new paint, furnishings and accessories.

“It’s amazing what a difference some paint, new bedding and up-to-date decorations will make,” Gamble said.

“To see the ladies’ faces as each room was revealed was rewarding,” said YWCA Housing Director Jamie Evans, who said the YW had been working on the renovation project for several months. “I am thrilled with the results. The outpouring from our sponsors has been phenomenal.”

The YWCA’s housing program has been around as long as the YW itself, harkening back to 1917 when the YWCA first opened its doors. In fact, one of the early residents was the daughter of George Marsh, who led the effort to build the YW in the early 1900s.

While there have been periodic updates to the rooms over the past 97 years, it’s been decades since the rooms were renovated, Gamble said.