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Teresa Berry celebrates 10 years of work helping our community at SARA.
If there had been a panic button convenient 10 years ago when Blue Ridge Behavioral Health Care (BRBHC) decided to pull the funding from SARA (Sexual Assault Response and Awareness), chances are Teresa Berry would have pounded on it with both hands.
But there wasn’t, so this tough, dedicated pro went to work instead. Her program had been one of the primary rescuers of rape victims in the Roanoke area for nearly 25 years when the funding disappeared. In 2011, the number of victims it helped stood at 5,318, counseling, healing, supporting.
Where would that help go?
It went to Teresa Berry and her unusual grit, organizing skill, mastery with grant writing and sheer dedication.
As of July 1, 2021, SARA has helped 44,775 women and men in trouble. By any measure anywhere, that would have to be categorized as wildly successful.
Because of her success with reviving the program, SARA now has significant funding from the Department of Criminal Justice and the Virginia Department of Health (channeling federal money). The jump in clients has been sporadic, sometimes sudden, she says. “We saw a jump in clients in 2017, partly because of the political climate.” Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. “It was a shift in our culture around the issue of [domestic violence] and the MeToo movement. Our client list nearly doubled.”
BRBHC laid Berry off in 2009 and began closing the program. “They shopped us around [to other agencies] for a year. We were the only sexual assault service in the area, but other agencies were interested in the money we brought in, not the staff.”
Eventually, the whole kit and kaboodle was turned over to Berry and “we got the quickest 501 (C) (3) anybody ever saw. We got it in three weeks. It usually takes several months.” June 30, the program closed. July 1, it reopened with a whole new look and feel — and minus a great deal of bureaucracy.
This was a lean, quick program that could make decisions on the fly, says Berry. It was re-opening in a difficult economic climate, but Berry has managed to quadruple the budget, double the office staff and pull in 10 times the number of volunteers SARA had in the past, she says.
“We have a lot of flexibility now,” says Berry, “but in the past, I didn’t have to take care of the business end. BRBHD did that. We’re cleaning the toilets, mowing the grass and paying the electric bill now. But it’s been worth the tradeoff.
“We are working openly and fluidly with other agencies. We have a fantastic board overseeing the checks and balances. If I have an idea—or somebody else in the organization has an idea—we discuss it and run with it. I work ridiculous hours, but if I were working 60 hours a week for somebody else, I would resent it. Now I do the grunt work willingly. … We are open to change, evolution and adaptation.
“I am surrounded by smart, imaginative people.”
SARA has become an icon. “We are helping facilitate the issue with an identifiable logo,” which has become SARA-Roanoke says Berry. “We have to stay true to our mission. We don’t change our mission to qualify for specific grants, for example.”
Berry says the simple fact is that “everybody is impacted by sexual violence” and “a lot of our outreach is teaching people how not to be raped, how not to rape.” That outreach and marketing have led to “less stigma and less victim-blaming,” says Berry.
“I’m hoping that in 10 years from now, we’re still here, still doing the work.”
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