Rural Advocate Receives Peace Award

“When I consider the women who started the Battered Women’s Movement in the 70’s, who used their own homes as Safe Homes, used their own moneys so women’s needs would be met, who worked tirelessly at Social Change, I am ever so humbled to be receiving this Peace Award.  Every Advocate who walked before me and those who walk beside me now will be with me as I accept the Sunshine Peace Award.”  - Shirley Erhart, Women's Advocate

The Sunshine Lady Foundation, Inc. presented The Sunshine Peace Awards at a dinner at Wilmington, NC on August 10th, to twenty-four recipients from across the country in recognition of their extraordinary efforts in the domestic violence field.  Shirley Erhart of Lemmon, SD was one of the recipients of this award.

Winners were selected from over 150 nominations and received a $10,000 prize and a Swarovski crystal gift.  The bi-annual awards were established in 1998, when 20 recipients were honored.  Fifteen recipients received the award in 2000. Nominations are solicited from domestic violence programs nationally.

Teresa LaRue Forbes of the Crisis Intervention Shelter Services (CISS) located in Sturgis, SD nominated Shirley for the award.  “Shirley is strong, I have never heard her complain about her life," she wrote in her nomination letter.

Shirley was hired by CISS in 1998 as an Outreach Advocate for the rural communities in and around the Faith, SD area located 105 miles from the main shelter.  Shirley has created a program from the grassroots up.  Her commute has been 68 miles one-way and she has had to care for and consider her family.  Shirley often drives the 105 miles one way to obtain Protection Orders, attend court proceedings with women and/or transporting women and their children to safety at the
Shelter.

However, Shirley has made relationships and has been accepted as someone battered women can trust with their stories.  Today Shirley is a living, breathing definition of a “rural advocate."

Shirley’s work did not start here though.  She began her work to end violence against women in 1988 as a volunteer for a developing program in Lemmon, SD as a Crisis Line Advocate while dealing with a chronic liver condition.  She eventually became Program Director and played a major role in establishing a Shelter for battered and/or sexually assaulted women in northwest South Dakota.

In 1997, at the suggestion of the Victim Advocate for the North Dakota Attorney General Office, Shirley wrote grants and implemented and developed a Victim/Witness Assistance Program covering four counties in southwestern North Dakota.  Shirley continues to volunteer for this program.

In 1995, Shirley initiated the “Silent Witness Exhibit” for the South Dakota Coalition Against Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault and is a founding mother of Rural Women Task Force and White Women Against Racism Committee within the SDCADVSA.

“We intend for these awards to recognize the courage and strength of these individuals, and through that recognition, encourage on-going efforts to bring hope, healing and safety to survivors of abuse,” said Doris Buffett Bryant, founder and president of The Sunshine Lady Foundation.

The Sunshine Lady Foundation is a private foundation established in 1996 with the mission of investing in organizations and programs dedicated to providing opportunities for the advancement of education, well-being and new life choices for disadvantaged people, with special empathy for the working poor and families in crisis.

The Coalition congratulates Shirley for her years of dedicated service.  Thank you on behalf of the Staff, Board and friends of the Coalition.  Shirley is indeed our inspiration and our strength.

“When I consider the women who started the Battered Women’s Movement in the 70’s, who used their own homes as Safe Homes, used their own moneys so women’s needs would be met, who worked tirelessly at Social Change, I am ever so humbled to be receiving this Peace Award.  Every Advocate who walked before me and those who walk beside me now will be with me as I accept the Sunshine Peace Award.”  - Shirley Erhart, Women's Advocate

From The Faith Independent, Faith, South Dakota
August 21, 2002