October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and this month, Hy-Vee and Fareway shoppers in Iowa City and Coralville will be able to provide necessary supplies to the Domestic Violence Intervention Program (DVIP), as Shop for Shelter returns for its 16th year.
From 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 15, DVIP staff, board members and volunteers will be at all the Hy-Vee and Fareway locations in Iowa City and Coralville to accept donated goods from shoppers. The annual event helps DVIP stock its shelves for up to nine months, enabling the nonprofit to help the adults and children it serves each year.
“In-kind donations are a crucial part of our work in helping victim-survivors,” DVIP Director of Community of Engagement Alta Medea-Peters said in a statement. “Our clients often have to leave everything behind, arriving with only the items they have on their backs. By providing folks with the basic necessities we, as a community, can allow them to focus on their next steps to safety.”
Shoppers interested in helping are asked to select a few items from DVIP’s needs list, and deposit them in the donation drop-off carts near the entrances of the store. This year’s top needs include infant formula, diapers, first aid kits, boxed meals, laundry detergent and toilet paper.
Volunteers are still needed to help with this year’s Shop for Shelter, and anyone interested can register online.
For those who want to help but won’t be at Hy-Vee or Fareway on Oct. 15, there’s a different online option. DVIP has an Amazon Charity List that can be used to donate items, including those less common in grocery stores, such as crib sheets, pregnancy pillows and women’s robes and slippers.
The nonprofit also accepts monetary donations. Information on how to make a tax-deductible donation is available on DVIP’s site or by calling 319-333-4099.
DVIP grew out of an initiative launched by the University of Iowa’s Women’s Resource and Action Center in the late 1970s. It opened its first shelter for people threatened by domestic violence in 1980, and now DVIP covers eight counties in southeastern Iowa — Johnson, Iowa, Cedar, Des Moines, Henry, Lee, Van Buren and Washington.
According to DVIP, there has been “a dramatic increase in the need for services per victim-survivor.”
“In the past year DVIP assisted 1,486 individuals from Johnson County,” Medea-Peters said. “The number of services we provided to those clients has increased 90 percent [year over year]. This underscores our need for resources to serve victim/survivors in our community.”
DVIP is holding other events this month as well. 
On Friday, Oct. 7, there will be a series of Facebook Live sessions with DVIP staff going live every hour on the hour between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. discussing the work DVIP does and how community members can become involved.
There will be a show at the James Theater in Iowa City on Saturday, Oct. 22 to support DVIP, featuring local musicians covering some of the great bands of the Los Angeles punk scene of the ’70s and ’80s. Dave Zollo and the Body Electric will perform music by The Blasters; Ready, Cassette, Go-Go will cover The Go-Go’s; City Park will play X and Plastic Relations covers Social Distortion. The show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25 at the door, or $22 in advance.
