The Guardian Shelter for Battered Families, a program of Catholic Charities Inc., would like to express our sincere appreciation to the staff of the Vidalia Conference and Convention Center for their recent financial donation to our program.

Their donation was the result of the Oct. 15 weekend of the balloon festival activities the City of Vidalia sponsored on their side of the Mississippi River.

A special thank you goes to Sheri Rabb, who, as the contact person for the convention Center, initially contacted us to announce they would like to share the proceeds from this event.

As a non-profit organization, the opportunity to be the recipient of funds is an honor not only to be recognized in the community as a helping agency, but to be able to utilize these funds for the victims of domestic violence. October has been Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and we as a staff have worked the month conducting awareness/education presentations to bring to communities the statistics and signs of domestic violent relationships.

The Guardian Shelter for Battered Families is responsible for providing safe shelter for women and children in 11 counties in Southwest Mississippi as well as service to neighboring parishes of Louisiana.

We have not scheduled fundraising activities for the months of October, November and December since these months are fundraising months for the United Way.

We will resume our fundraising in March with our annual Purple Dress Run and Pub Crawl.

We are eager to start planning this event once again as we had a strong attendance last year and have many calls from those who participated eager to attend again. We look forward to seeing new faces at this event in 2012 as well.

As always, I want to commend the Natchez community and surrounding areas for your continued support of our organization and the programs we offer to the victims of domestic violence.

We are the only local organization/shelter providing services that focus on keeping families together and to develop a plan of unified safety.

We, as a staff at the Guardian Shelter, strive to maintain a facility for the families of domestic violence that is safe and in good condition with 24-hour staffing services.

We work hard to be active in our community to assure both the professional arena as well as private individuals that we are available at 1-800-273-6938 or 601-442-0142 for information or referral for all matters of domestic violence.

We urge all the readers in the Miss-Lou to remember there is no excuse for domestic abuse. Please contact me or my staff for further information about our program or to provide an educational program for your organization regarding domestic violence and its impact on our society.

Donna Miller is the director of domestic violence programs at The Guardian Shelter.