Fall seven times, stand up eight. – Japanese Proverb
While many Gilroy women volunteer and donate to charitable
causes in South Valley, they also make their mark beyond these
borders as they support a charitable institution that is
celebrating its 90th birthday today.
Fall seven times, stand up eight. – Japanese Proverb
While many Gilroy women volunteer and donate to charitable causes in South Valley, they also make their mark beyond these borders as they support a charitable institution that is celebrating its 90th birthday today. Since 1914, the Mary Elizabeth Inn in San Francisco has provided a safe haven to more than 42,000 women of many cultures, ages, faiths, and economic needs.
Each year Gilroy teachers, political activists, nurses, homemakers – women from just about every walk of life – donate time and money to support the work of Mary Elizabeth Inn. Today I will join other women to attend the birthday celebration which includes a discussion panel with Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey.
Such notables as Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, and Dianne Feinstein sit on the honorary committee for the Inn, and their support joined with the many contributors from throughout California make it possible for each resident to pay room and board (counseling is included at no additional charge) on a sliding scale, which makes it affordable for women in the most desperate situations.
They find an environment which offers help for women in post-shelter recovery programs, survivors of domestic violence, and women dealing with divorce, addiction, battering, homelessness, grief, illness, natural disaster, and financial chaos.
“There are more shelters for animals than there are for battered women,” Director Kae Lewis says. “Mary Elizabeth Inn is another name for home. All women are welcome here.”
The Inn was originally built by the remarkable Lizzie Glide as a safe residence for young women who came to The City seeking jobs during the post 1906 earthquake rebuilding years. The deed specifies that it will only and forever be used to house women of limited resources. When Lizzie Glide (1852-1941) was widowed and inherited her husband’s assets, she vowed that if she were blessed, she would give back to others. She owned a piece of dry desert land near Bakersfield that no one thought was worth anything, but after Lizzie prayed for guidance, she struck oil.
True to her word, Lizzie established the Inn, and early residents were widows who worked in the sewing factories, or naïve women who came to the city for adventure and found themselves victims of the sex industry targeting them for work in brothels or saloons. At the Inn, they had a safe, affordable room ($1 per day) of their own.
The Inn remains a place of inspiration for all of us in the lesson it teaches in this quote from Mary Pickford: “If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.”
We may fall seven times, but we can all help each other stand up eight.
