Nearly 70 men clad in purple domestic violence awareness t-shirts spent Tuesday afternoon placing door hangers on homes with information for resources provided by the Naples Shelter for Abused Women and Children.
The men were volunteers recruited by the group Gentle’men Against Domestic Violence to partake in the organization's Take a Stand initiative.
"A lot of people still don’t want to talk about domestic violence, and this is a way to just get information to them and when they’re ready and when they need it, then they’ll be able to refer back to the [informational] card.
The effort to leave information on doors throughout the county is a first for the Naples women’s shelter. Senior Development Officer for the organization, Liz Roundtree, said the initiative is modeled after one done in Orlando.
"And we decided to start small and not do the whole area," Roundtree said. "So that’s how we started with the four teams and three communities."
Roundtree said they chose target areas based off high-call volume areas with information provided by the sheriff’s office.
GADV advocate Manuel Vazquez, was assigned to distribute informational door hangers just a few blocks west of the Naples shelter.
"We’re just going [to] one door at a time, Vazquez said. "We’re not really knocking on the door and asking to come in or anything like that, we’re just leaving the information so if they are interested, they can call the hotline or they can share [it] with any other friend that they know."
Roundtree said the Women’s shelter will track the amount of door hangers and other informational materials distributed during today’s walk to see if it leads to an increase in people seeking services over the next few weeks.
