Two Humboldt State University alumni have promised a $1 million dollar donation toward the construction of a self-sustaining, long-term shelter for battered women and their children.
Byron Turner and Allison Minch, who finished postgraduate studies at Humboldt State in the early 1990s, pledged the gift to help build the Oasis Project in Humboldt County by the end of the decade.
The money comes from the $2 million sale of instructional software written for Created Equal, the non-profit Turner and Minch founded in 1995.
Turner and Minch are required by the IRS to match a portion of their company's donation with money from other sources, however. To ease this burden, they are spreading the gift over two years, but must still raise $125,000 each year from private donations and the help of a grant writer, Shelley Mitchell.
Turner said the gift aims to break a cycle of non-profit reliance on government funding, which is unpredictable at best.
By helping build the Oasis Project, he hopes to demonstrate a way of doing things that doesn't require continually drawing on the well of resources.
"If we do this right," Turner said, "we'll only have to give money once and then the center will support itself."
Turner said he was greatly influenced at Humboldt State to perform socially conscious work by the combination of Jack Schaefer's class on the psychology of prejudice, and by working at the YES house.
"The class gave me the intellectual foundation to understand social problems, and working at the YES house put that knowledge into a service context," Turner said. "I was able to take the knowledge and apply it usefully."
Turner said he hopes to work closely with both the campus community and Humboldt State alumni to design, maintain and operate the Oasis Project, ideally partnering with alums in established engineering firms while offering internships to students.
On campus, Turner said he particularly hopes to work with the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT), a group that promotes sustainable solutions to the world's resource problems.
While not familiar with the Oasis Project, a spokesman at CCAT said they support the idea of a self-sustaining shelter, and would be willing to provide an advisory role to the effort with examples of sustainable technologies.
The campus liaison for the Oasis Project is Humboldt State Professor Pamela Brown, part of the department of social work who sat on Turner's thesis committee in the early 1990s and a member of Created Equal's board of directors.
Brown is coordinating the project locally, and said she is working with a grant writer to secure a portion of the matching funds for Turner and Minch's donation.
"We have a general vision, but the details have to be worked out," Brown said. "That's where the expertise of Humboldt State comes into play."
Brown said she hopes to coordinate with faculty in the departments of psychology and natural resources to gain from their specialized knowledge and to investigate research opportunities for students.
The Oasis Project is also partnering with an Australian architect, fluent in green building techniques, and hopes to connect with existing domestic violence programs in Humboldt County, Brown said.
"If [the Oasis Project] works and is sustainable, then it's a great thing to give the community hope, and to give mothers and their families an opportunity to flee the cycle of domestic violence," Brown said.
The majority of existing domestic violence programs in the region serve short-term needs of victims, said Dawn Watkins of Humboldt Domestic Violence Services.
Watkins said that there are several emergency shelters around the county, but the long-term model proposed for the Oasis Project is unique to the area.
Last year, the agency's crisis line received about 2,800 calls from victims of domestic violence, with nearly 700 from first-time callers needing immediate support services, Watkins said.
Humboldt Domestic Violence Services would like to partner with the Oasis Project, Watkins said, complementing her agency's varied advocacy and connecting the Oasis Project with local victims.
Brown said the Oasis Project hopes to break ground in late 2008, as long as all the funding can be secured.
Donations of any size can be made online at www.createdequal.com/oasis, the website for Turner and Minch's non-profit.
"If enough people give their $10, and we give our $1 million," Turner said, "we'll never have to go to the well again."
Brett Shiells can be contacted at brettely@gmail.com
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