By the end of 2017, just over a year after the Rose Andom Center first opened its doors, more than 1,200 survivors had come to the Center seeking safety, support, and a path forward.

Behind that number were 1,200 individual stories. Every survivor who walked through our doors arrived with different experiences, circumstances, and needs. Some were looking for immediate safety and crisis support. Others needed help navigating the legal system, accessing healthcare, connecting with community resources, or simply understanding what options were available to them. Many were taking an incredibly difficult first step and reaching out for help for the first time.

While every story was different, one thing remained constant: survivors no longer had to navigate these complicated systems alone.

At the Rose Andom Center, survivors could access coordinated, trauma-informed services in one safe and welcoming location. Instead of traveling from agency to agency, making countless phone calls, or repeatedly sharing details of their experiences, survivors could connect with professionals who were working together to provide comprehensive support centered around their individual needs and choices.

Throughout those early years, a deeply committed Rose Andom Center team worked side by side with an incredible network of community partners. Advocates, legal professionals, healthcare providers, law enforcement, and other service providers came together around a shared belief that our community could provide a better, more compassionate response to domestic violence.

That collaboration was at the heart of the Rose Andom Center from the beginning. By bringing different agencies and areas of expertise together, we began breaking down barriers that too often make it difficult for survivors to find the help they need. Partners could communicate, coordinate services, and help survivors navigate their options without asking them to shoulder that responsibility alone.

And survivors noticed the difference.

They told us they felt believed. Safe. Seen.

Those words became some of the most meaningful measures of our impact. They reminded us that success was not simply about the number of people who walked through our doors. It was about what happened once they arrived. It was about creating an environment where survivors were treated with dignity, where their voices and choices mattered, and where they could begin determining what safety and healing looked like for themselves.

By the end of 2017, those first 1,200 survivors had helped demonstrate what was possible when a community chose collaboration over fragmentation and placed survivors at the center of its response.

Nearly a decade later, the principles established during those early years continue to guide our work. Every survivor deserves access to compassionate, coordinated support. Every survivor deserves to be heard and believed. And every survivor deserves to know that they do not have to face what comes next alone.

None of this work happens without a community behind it. Your generosity helps turn proven impact into lasting change, ensuring that survivors continue to have a place where they can find support, resources, and hope for the future.

As we look back on ten years of the Rose Andom Center, we are celebrating the milestones that brought us here and the people who made each one possible. We hope you will join us on October 17 for the Rose Andom Center’s 10th Anniversary Gala, as we honor a decade of hope, healing, partnership, and impact and look ahead to what we can accomplish together in the next ten years.