Great Idea for Women Gets Better

What I like about women helping women is that it catches on--one person’s efforts lead to another’s pitching in. In this case, it’s Women Helping Women.

That’s the name of an emerging Costa Mesa nonprofit group that’s helping battered women in their final steps toward independence and a safe environment for their children.

It began in businesswoman Marilyn McGraw’s Irvine living room four years ago. A few women wanted to provide some nice clothes for battered women to wear to job interviews.

It’s grown in that short time to an operation financially stable enough to recently hire its first full-time director. It not only finds clothes for battered women, it assists them with their resumes and with faxes to potential employers.

Women Helping Women lets clients know which jobs are available and generally helps them with their self-esteem. Soon it will provide computer training for some, and is setting up a mentoring program--something like a Big Brothers/Big Sisters for adults. The group also has plans to do more for women coming out of prison.

Here’s how volunteerism is catching:

* The idea began when McGraw approached her attorney, Frances Hayward of Laguna Niguel. Hayward then helped put together the original group. It got a big boost the next year when Roberta Kanter-Stein of Lake Forest, an environmental consultant, heard about it and called to see if she could help. She’s now president of the organization’s board and has been a force behind its fund-raising efforts.

* The new director, Dianne Russell, recently explained its operation to professor Joyce Bishop’s psychology class at Golden West College in Huntington Beach. Bishop was so impressed she allowed her students to earn credit for volunteering at the Women Helping Women offices at the Harper Community Center.

* Some of the agency’s board members talked up the program to some women at the Soroptimist Club in Irvine. The service club members have since taken it on as a cause. They secured a grant from their national headquarters to set up a seven-computer job-training operation at the Women Helping Women offices. Qualified volunteers will teach it.

* One volunteer who helped battered women with their clothes became so interested she’s now one of the first mentors.

“People do want to help, if they just know that people like us exist and need them,” Russell told me.

Women Helping Women assists about 20 women each week, who are referred by battered women’s shelters, homeless centers and churches. Most of these women are already involved in other counseling programs.

“We just help them take that next step toward being independent,” Russell said. “For some of them, the clothes they get from us are the best they’ve ever worn.”

Russell foresees a job placement division to augment the computer training that will begin soon. I told her I thought the mentoring idea was perhaps the most exciting for the women’s long-term emotional stability.

“Some of these abused women really need a relationship involving common sense,” Russell said. “We hope we can match them up with women who not only care what happens to them, but can show them by example.”

Seems to me Women Helping Women is already showing by example.

Plank Owner: If you’re a Navy veteran, you know that a “plank owner” is someone who served aboard a Navy ship during its original commission.

Bill Pemberton, operations manager at John Wayne Airport, is a plank owner from the USS Forrestal (1955-58) who was hoping to meet up this year with one fellow plank crew member from his division at a reunion. To his amazement and delight, he met up with four.

“It was just a great, great experience,” said Pemberton, who just returned from a Forrestal reunion in Hyannis Port, Mass.

You might remember a mention in this column last year that Garden Grove insurance agent Bill Wallace was about to attend the de-commissioning of the Forrestal in Baltimore. Wallace’s son is a deputy sheriff who happened to mention it to Pemberton at the airport--unaware that Pemberton had served on the same ship. That led to Pemberton, a Forrestal radio operator, learning for the first time about this year’s reunion plans.

He and his four colleagues had not seen each other for 40 years. “But we’ll sure keep in touch now,” Pemberton said.

A Done Deal: If you travel through Garden Grove via Euclid Avenue on the way to work, you’ve probably watched the progress the past two years on a beautiful building under construction just across from the Civic Center. That’s the new Coastline Community College Garden Grove Center, which opened with classes this year for 1,400 students.

“We’ve found that the people of the Garden Grove area were really underserved in higher education,” said Coastline President Leslie Purdy. “Now we have people coming into that building off the street asking where they can sign up for classes.”

Next Wednesday morning, the students will have to work their way around a little festive celebrating when the college holds the building’s grand opening. The guest speaker will be David Pierce of Washington, D.C., president of the American Assn. of Community Colleges.

Wrap-Up: Marilyn McGraw has moved away from the county; Hayward is the only original member of Women Helping Women still with the group. After learning how the group began, I called Hayward and told her she was a heroine of mine.

Her response was that the real heroines are the battered women who reach out for help.

“It’s a real act of bravery for them to come to us,” she said. “They don’t know what they’re getting into; they don’t know if they’re going to be patronized. When you think about what these women have been through, you have to admire their courage in wanting a different life for themselves and their children.”

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail [email protected]