| Hank Haines: Blue Monarch provides a haven for abused women, children |
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By: HANK HAINES, Post Columnist
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Posted: Sunday, November 9, 2008 8:10 am
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When Howell and Madeline Adams of Atlanta got in touch with Monteagle’s Susan Binkley, it was like a visit from fairy godparents. The couple’s charitable foundation offered to make Binkley’s dream come true by financing the purchase of a retreat for women and their children, a million-dollar offer.
The Adamses are heavyweights in Atlanta philanthropic circles, and they have a house or two on the Cumberland Plateau near Beersheba. “They heard about my interest in abused women and were able to get a rate of interest low enough for us to handle it.”
Binkley’s charity, Blue Monarch, has whittled the debt down to $480,000 and she’s currently working on a $250,000 matching fund that also will be supplied by Adams and his wife.
Binkley sought to provide a haven for abused women. In the five-year life of the Blue Monarch, she’s seen 73 women and 147 children, not all completed the 12-month program, but “they always gain something valuable while they are in the program.”
She can recount a remarkable dream where she read through a handbook on how to operate a women’s shelter “down to the last detail.”
“I’m convinced it came straight from God. There was nothing about the dream that related to my own life at the time, which included selling my art through a gallery in Nashville, and running a horse boarding operation on my farm. In fact, I often made the comment that I must have intercepted someone else’s dream because it had nothing to do with me.”
Adams’ investment put Binkley’s Blue Monarch in business at a secluded location in the woods near Monteagle. In the future she hopes to build more houses for families on the 50-acre site. “We get two or three applications a day. We don’t turn them away, but they must go on a waiting list.” Blue Monarch now accepts women from over the state.
In the early stages of the project, Binkley was concerned about what got the women into drug dependencies and another aspect of dependency, the women’s attachment to a man, often to one who beats her.
One day she called her clientele together and asked them to tell their stories. “All had been sexually abused before the age of five. All had been taught to use drugs by a family member.
“The men convince their wife she’s worthless without them. She can’t survive, can’t put food on her children’s table. In the man’s opinion, she can’t survive without him. Many of these women have seen her mother and grandmother treated this way. It becomes cultural.”
While meth remains a primary menace, “We’re seeing more and more people addicted to prescription drugs.”
Binkley foresees a chance for Blue Monarch to expand. “I’d like graduates to have a chance to live on site for a bit.”
Women are asked to successfully complete a year in residence where they work for Binkley’s Blue Chair food service enterprises in Sewanee. They take instruction in a variety of skills including personal ones. “Attitudes must change. Responsibility is something many of them have not experienced.”
At times a woman leaves the shelter, unable to make the changes necessary to take charge of their lives.
Much of this was covered in a column five years ago. I know something about how women are treated in this society. I have four daughters, four grand daughters, one great-grand daughter and three more – a pair of twins and a single – due for February delivery. My interest in their welfare is intense. |
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