Kingdom Village opened its doors Dec. 9 to welcome battered women and children to their facility. The shelter, brainchild of the Rt. Rev. Shirley Holloway, is set to be a safe haven for victims of domestic violence.
Kingdom Village will be located on the 2400 block of Brooks Drive in Suitland and will house more than 250 women and children. The center will be a faith-based shelter and certified clinical treatment facility. It will also house the Bishop Holloway Learning Life Leadership Academy which will cover kindergarten through 12th grades in addition to Kingdom Tots Daycare and Kingdom Future Montessori Program.
The shelter marks another effort in Prince George’s where people prominent officials are trying to tackle domestic violence in the community.
“It’s a huge problem. Prince George‘s County certainly has major challenges with that,” county State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey told the AFRO recently. “It clearly was a problem when I was a prosecutor and it’s a problem across the country. It’s an issue that we need to try to get on everybody’s radar screen and the faith community could be a perfect vehicle for raising this kind of issue.”
Ivey, himself, is involved with a faith-based initiative called Project Safe Sunday in which he partnered with the county’s faith-based community to promote domestic violence awareness.
“For a lot of people, when they’re in crisis, the first place they turn is to their place of worship,” he said. “We want to make sure that those places are prepared to deal with them and point them in the right direction to get help in respect to referrals, social service or the police.”
Kingdom Village is one of two facilities in which Holloway is directly involved. The other, House of Help City of Hope (HOH), houses families, single women and men. At HOH, families not only receive ministerial support but they also receive necessities such as food, clothing, shelter and medical care. HOH also provides assistance for substance abuse.
The grand opening honored Elsie Jacobs who served eight years with the Maryland Civic Association and will be hosted by L’Tanya N. Brown, a homeless prevention specialist. Guest speakers will include former Prince George’s Police Chief Roberto Hylton and Councilwoman Karen Toles, D.-Dist. 7.
On Dec. 10, there will be another ceremony where Lonise Bias, Ph.D., will be the hostess while State Sen. C. Anthony Muse, D.-Dist. 26, will be the guest speaker.
Organizers are asking the public to donate $500 to dedicate a room to someone of their choosing or to purchase a gift from a registry set up on Walmart.com.
Call Melissa Toney at 202-249-8511 for volunteer information.
