Safe Havens Gives Abused Women a Working Chance
By Michelle Pentz

Karen Justice-Guard has a compelling story and business concept behind her newly spawned Safe Havens for Little People, her supporters say. Now the challenge is to get some financing behind the Concord nonprofit's vision: to train disadvantaged and abused women and get them employed.

There are a lot of women in welfare situations who, if they had the right training and support, could get into positive work environments and really grow and mature," said Sandy Bustillo, employment services analyst at the Contra Costa County Social Service Department.

Bustillo's department financed a grant writer for Justice-Guard and is working to help connect her nonprofit to women and children in need.

A former victim of domestic violence, Justice-Guard started Safe Havens in 1998 with about $200,000 of her own inheritance. Her idea was to support women and children who have experienced any type of abuse and get their lives back on track. How Justice-Guard's concept differs from most is that she wants to bankroll the nonprofit with several for-profit businesses where women can also find employment.

"I want to give women business opportunities and make income that will feed the cause," said Justice-Guard, who spent one year on welfare. "It's so humiliating and humbling (being on welfare). We need to give people their dignity back. I'm trying to change this paradigm, have the community get these women entry back into society by partnering with Safe Havens."

Once Justice-Guard gets the funding and partners, her plan is to offer on-the-job training, internships, educational assistance and counseling. She is assembling a board of directors. The county's Welfare to Work program has endorsed "Safe Havens' plan, she said.

Since creating her nonprofit, Justice-Guard started a shop that sells used clothing, house wares and gifts. It also peddles Safe Havens' line of bottled water and sauces. A corporate lunch box catering business run out of a relative's bakery in Danville kicks back 25 percent of profits to Safe Havens. Justice-Guard has other businesses in the works and has pitched her cause to major corporations like Safeway and McDonald's

"Karen has a good idea," said Wanda Greene, assistant to the employment and compliance manager at Chevron Corp. in San Francisco. "If she can make things work the way she sees them in her head, it will be a great service to women and children in the community."

The challenge for Safe Havens is generating funds and putting together a concrete organizational structure, said Brandon Day, a financial consultant at Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. in Walnut Creek.

"If she uses her name and story, I don't see why she shouldn't be able to raise a lot of money, especially in this area," said Day, who may join the permanent board. "All she needs is for a Dave Duffield (PeopleSoft Inc. chairman and CEO) to come out of the blue - and boom! That would make it."