New Location for PDC Orenda Center in Neillsville
Wednesday, January 30th, 2019 -- 11:19 AM
-A long time Neillsville service has a new name and a new location in the city.People may not be familiar with the new PDC Orenda Center located on Highway 10 in Neillsville, but you may recognize them under their former name, the Personal Development Center. I spoke with an employee of the center and she provided some more background information on the PDC Orenda Center.
“We’ve been here for about 20 years, actually, and a lot of people probably either aren’t aware of our services or know that we exist. For those that do know, the Personal Development Center is what we’re formerly known as. And it wasn’t until about 5 months ago, when we opened our shelter in our Marshfield location, that we became known as the PDC Orenda Center. So, along with the new shelter, we wanted to rebrand and basically put our names out there in a different way.”
She also explained the services available at the center.
“Our services are completely free. They’re completely confidential. Our services are offered more so for victims and families of domestic violence and sexual assault. In some cases, we do help people that are experiencing stalking or harassing and other traits of an unhealthy relationship.”
“Basically, there’s a couple of things that we do offer. One of those is our 24-hour crisis hotline. So, there will always be someone on the phone when someone needs to be reached in case of an emergency. Legal advocacy is probable one of our more well-known services in this county. Legal advocacy includes filing restraining orders and also attending court for support for victims during criminal cases. So, as an advocate, our services are more so a supportive role and a place to get referrals to other area organizations that can help provide them with the resources that they need.”
“We also do crisis intervention and peer counseling. Our Youth Advocate actually goes into several of the schools in Clark County. She does a lot of prevention education on health vs. unhealthy relationships. She talks about boundaries and safety with the Elementary School students. She gets them to know that it’s okay to say and yes or no to things that may be uncomfortable. She also does office hours in some of the schools where she’ll just be available for part of the day and students, and/or staff, if they would like to meet with an advocate can meet with her, schedule a time, and just do some support and peer counseling that way.”
“Also, in Clark County, we have a large Hispanic population. So, when we do have Spanish speaking victims come into our office, we do have interpreter services as well.”
“We do also provide support groups to children and adults. We also have a group currently going called Wise Group. If is run in our Marshfield location as of right now. We would certainly love to bring it to our Clark County office, but, for right now, with not very many people interested in that, at this point, we aren’t really having anything up and running at this time.”
“In our office there are three of us. There’s a Domestic Violence Advocate, a Sexual Assault Advocate and the Youth Advocate. So each one of us specializes in a different type of program. However, we’re all cross trained to be able to help someone if they come in in a crisis or emergency type situation.”
She also explained the Orenda Center’s history in Neillsville
“So we, in the 20 years that we’ve been in this area, have moved several times. We were more so an outreach office, so somewhere if we did have people from Clark County, we’d have a safe place for them to meet. More so now, we have a lot more people becoming aware of our services. We’re doing a lot more outreach and conversations with community partners in the area to be able to get the referrals to be able to help people in this county and in this community.”
“So, we needed a bigger place to do that. We added on to the staff. There were only two advocates previously. In the last two years, they did hire a third advocate to be able to help in all areas of the services that we provide. So, we have more space now. It’s better quality services for the people that we serve. So, once we kinda found where we felt most comfortable and where we were going to be able to serve our community, we decided then it was time to put up a larger sign because it was difficult for people to find us over the last two years. So, you can see that from the road now.”
The PDC Orenda Center does have a fundraiser coming up.
“So, being that the PDC Orenda Center is a private, non-profit agency, we due hold fundraisers several times throughout the year. More so in the Wood County area as we’re more well know in that area, but we would, eventually, like to get some here in Clark County. But we do have one coming up. It’s our Sheltering Hearts event. This year it’s held at the RiversEdge Golf Course in Marshfield. And it is one February 14th, that is Valentine’s Day. But with the purchase of a ticket, you’ll get a romantic dinner, there’s entertainment, live and silent auctions, there is a raffle as well. And all proceeds benefit our organization and go towards victims not only in Wood County, but also the Clark County area to help them leave a situation that has become violent.
To end our interview, she offered up their new address here in the City of Neillsville.
“Our address, for those people now familiar with the area, is 1031 E. Division Street, right across from the Clark County Fairgrounds. And, again, are services are completely free, they’re completely confidential and, again, we’re there for support and to provide resources for people in the community who might not have access to those resources otherwise.”
If you’d like to learn more about the PDC Orenda Center and their services you can head to their website, https://www.pdcmarshfield.com/.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.