Victoria got started when she joined the St. Vincent de Paul group when her youngest child turned three. She met a retired colleague named Phillip O’Dea, and they spent the next 12 years making between 3 and 5 house calls a week in our parish. At that time, volunteers were required to visit each person who requested assistance for groceries, rent, and utility payments. They found mostly women, raising children without the help of a father, often without a car, a job, or a high school diploma. With few options to move forward in their lives, these women were angry, depressed and often the victims of abuse.
Victoria really loved the experience of meeting these women and getting to know what their needs were so the idea of having a program to work with them instead of just helping with the financial needs seemed like the way to go. So, her husband Jack suggested she needed to see if she could work effectively with a group of trainees, and so she started a cleaning company. Cleaning houses turned out to be the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. Most of her friends did not trust her to do a good job, so the cleaning company ended up doing a lot of the work free until they got some experience.
It became clear that someone with administrative skill was needed to help with the structure of a new Not for Profit entity, and Neil Norkaitis who had just retired form Anheiser Busch volunteered to head up the project, poor guy. They worked for 2 years getting it ready, and the program opened in 1995, complete with an onsite daycare program.
Victoria’s major at Fontbonne University was Speech Pathology, so she teaches the Professional Speech class which covers good grammar, introductions, table manners, anger management, and conflict resolution. It is lots of fun, never a dull moment. Everything comes up in this class and she gets to remind everybody that God is here and is healing us as we speak about our problems and our struggles. Victoria likes to tell the women that take a tour through our program that their goal is to pass the High School Equivalency test, but the primary goal for WOMEN IN CHARGE is to heal the spirit of everyone who comes through the door- women, teachers and children.
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