Mary Kay helping domestic abuse victims at Cambridge Transition House

Mary Kay independent beauty Consultant and domestic violence survivor Rhonda Richardson helps with the gardening at the Transition House in Cambridge Friday. Photo submitted by Mary Kay Inc.

By Brock Parker, Town Correspondent

After driving their signature pink Cadillacs to the Statehouse this week to advocate for domestic violence victims, representatives from Mary Kay cosmetics headed to Cambridge Friday to help the Transition House plant its garden.

The Texas-based skin care and cosmetic company has recently partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation to provide a grant to fund a garden for nature classes to be taken by domestic violence victims at the Transition House as they recover and work to get back on their feet.

Anne Crews, the vice president of government relations for Mary Kay, said Friday that the garden is just one of the grants the company is supplying to domestic abuse shelters in Cambridge and around the country.

Crews along with other Mary Kay representatives visited the Statehouse in Boston Thursday to advocate for sexual and domestic violence survivors, and to emphasize the need to fund programs for the victims.

A national survey conducted by the company found that while government funding for domestic violence shelters has been on the decline during the economic downturn, the number of women seeking assistance from abuse has been on the rise at 80 percent of shelters nationwide.

Risa Mednick, the chair of the board for the Transition House, said the facility serves about 100 adults and children who are victims of domestic abuse, and its eight beds are always full. But the shelter has seen its state funding decrease by about $50,000 and is expecting another cut in the coming year, she said.

“This sets small organizations like ours scrambling for resources,” Mednick said.

This year, Mary Kay is also providing a $20,000 grant to the Transition House to assist with its operations, part of $3 million the company is donating to shelters around the country.

But Friday, as the spring temperatures approached 70 degrees, the Mary Kay representatives and women at the Transition House were more focused and enjoying the outdoors and planting flowers and herbs around the house.

Eliane Moreira, a domestic abuse survivor who recently moved out of the Transition House into a place of her own, returned Friday to help with the gardening. She said it is important for her to continue helping at the Transition House so she can maintain a connection with the people there.

“This place helped me to put the pieces together again,” she said.

Rhonda Richardson, a Mary Kay independent beauty consultant who said she is also a domestic violence survivor, helped with the gardening Friday because she said it was places like the Transition House that helped her escape more than 20 years of abuse.

“Thank god for places like this,” she said.

--Brock.globe@gmail.com