Food an Important Ingredient at Abuse Shelter

Families who flee domestic violence can find refuge at an emergency shelter run by San Pedro-based Rainbow Services. But in the last year, they have been served more than safe harbor.

The children and mothers residing at the shelter have eaten nutritious food and gotten fewer colds as they mend their battered lives -- thanks to a cook who plans and makes their meals.

Previously, adult residents of the shelter took turns cooking nightly dinner, which was not only “chaotic” but also allowed viruses and colds to easily spread, said Kirsten Grimm, grant writer for Rainbow Services.

Since October 2004, having a cook has been credited with improving shelter residents’ health. She plans nutritious meals for the 250 to 300 family members who use Rainbow’s 30-day emergency shelter in the course of a year, said Linda Alexander, development manager. When funding for the position ran out this summer, a $20,000 grant from the Los Angeles Times Family Fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation allowed the nonprofit organization to continue paying the cook.

The grant is the result of the generosity of Times readers, whose donations to last year’s annual campaign totaled more than $1.4 million.

At Rainbow, the grant was used to better feed dozens of family violence victims served at the shelter, where they can live for 30 days while being helped with permanent housing, job placement and psychological and economic counseling, Grimm and Alexander said.

With the meal planning program and designated cook, “we’ve already seen that the families are staying healthier,” Grimm said.

“There are two reasons that’s been phenomenal for us,” she said. One is that the cook plans all the menus so they meet nutritional guidelines set by the state of California’s Department of Education. “The second thing is that our cook is the only person who handles all the food, and she’s professional.

“What we’ve found is that the moms and kids are staying healthier.”

There are only 1,554 beds for domestic violence victims in Los Angeles County, Grimm said. Rainbow Services’ 24-hour hotlines take more than 4,000 calls a year, Alexander said.

“We have an emergency shelter which can house six families with 24 beds,” she said. “The battered women always bring their children.

“We had four babies born here this year, because 25% of women who are battered are pregnant at the time.”

That makes good nutrition especially vital to the recovery of battered families, Grimm said. Furthermore, the average age of Rainbow shelter residents is 6, “which tells you how many children are involved as victims.”

“We turn away nine people for every one that we can house,” she added.

For the families’ safety, the location of the shelter is kept secret.

The other shelters in the county coordinate as calls come in from battered women who are in imminent danger. A woman might call a program near her home, but she and her children could be placed at a shelter some distance away to make it tougher for a batterer to track them down.

Why? “Because the homicide rate increases when the victim leaves the home,” Grimm said. “These families are essentially hiding from imminent danger.”

Because, statistically, the abusive partner tends to control the woman’s environment and finances, many of the shelter residents arrive with nothing but the clothes they are wearing and a few toys for their children.

So Rainbow helps them with financial planning and child enrichment activities.

“We serve abused women and their children, but we refer to it now as family violence, because it is more clear to people who all is involved,” Alexander said.

“In one year, the program the Times grant helps will serve approximately 200 kids and 100 women. We find very consistently that two-thirds of our shelter residents are kids.”

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Money raised last year has provided $1.4 million to help children in need in 2005.

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Dec. 26