An official groundbreaking ceremony was held recently for the Lois Hurt Annex, an additional building to help ease overcrowding at the Montgomery County Women’s Center shelter.

Lois Hurt was a longtime and beloved community volunteer who was a part of MCWC and participated with the group for years.  She passed away July 9, 2011 after a battle with cancer. Lois Hurt was highly regarded as an extremely community-minded and loving person, continuing to give of herself to others and local organizations while herself courageously facing the health consequences of her ordeal.

The Women’s Center’s shelter currently has 60-beds for battered women and children fleeing abuse, but it is often full.  The overcrowding is exacerbated by the shelter’s rule that teenage boys cannot share a bathroom with other families, and since the MCWC shelter is designed with two bedrooms sharing the same bathroom, a woman with a teenage son can take up two rooms.

The new Lois Hurt building will have 1,800 square-feet for four bedrooms to relieve the overcrowding and the issues of teenage boys’ as each room would have its own bathroom. The building also could be used to isolate any clients who are ill and therefore prevent the rest of the shelter from getting sick.

Montgomery County Women’s Center provides safe shelter, crisis intervention, counseling, legal and support services to victims/survivors of family violence, sexual assault, stalking and abuse in Montgomery County and surrounding counties, and provides education to the community about such issues.

The Montgomery County Women’s Center is a 501C 3 nonprofit, private organization.

Source: Woodlands Online