The Royal Purple members all across Canada on Thursday marked Purple Thursday by providing care bags to women who are victims of intimate partner violence.
The Prince Albert and Shellbrook Royal Purple members were on hand to share care bags to victims of abusive relationship in the Prince Albert Safe Shelter for women.
“We are trying to raise awareness about brain injuries and the intersection that it has with interpersonal violence,” said Elaine Perkins, President Shellbrook Royal Purple Branch. “This is all across Canada today. We do this annually and this year because we had so much going on in other years when we’ve done it, we’ve put Purple Thursday times seven, so it’s been going on all week.”
Royal Purple organizations across Canada deliver bags to local shelters on the third Thursday of October each year. Perkins said the stats show Royal Purple groups will deliver a combined 5,000 bags across Canada on Purple Thursday.
The Care bags are prepared to assist victims of intimate partner violence. The bags include items like toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, and conditioner.
“(It’s) things that they don’t have when they leave the place of violence,” Perkins said. “We collect these. Some has been by donations of money and then we purchase the items. Others have just been by the goodness of the business and people who come out to support us.”
Perkins gave some disturbing statistics, saying that one in three women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime, out of those women, one in eight women will have a brain injury of some level whether concussion or more drastic.
The major focus of the Canadian Royal Purple is brain injury awareness and prevention. The aim of Purple Thursday is to draw national attention to the magnitude and impact of intimate partner violence and subsequent brain injuries.
Perkins said the statistics show its particularly a problem in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
“I hate to have to say this because I love Saskatchewan, but I don’t like those statistics,” Perkins said. “What we want to do is try and stop the violence, bring it out there where people can understand.”
Perkins added that it’s not just women who suffer from intimate partner violence. One in five men suffer from it too.
BrendaLee Pellerin, a Support Services Worker with the PA Safe Shelter said it means a lot to have the Royal Purple’s support.
“They lovingly go around and collect donations, purchase all the items, fill the bags,” Pellerin said. “They bring what they have and we pass it along to our ladies here who are coming from, sometimes, next to nothing, so the bag is very special to them…. It shows that other people in the community care what they’re going through.”
Pellerin said the number of women requiring help spiked significantly during COVID, when lockdowns made it difficult for women to leave an abusive relationship and find shelter. Since then, she said, the situation has improved, but there are still issues.
“There is always a need,” she said. “It’s more difficult when you have children with you to be able to find a safe place. You don’t want your children on the street. They’re a risk, so anything that a shelter can do to take in a lady and her children is valuable to herself and her family.”
In some cases, Pellerin said they have received calls for help from women who need help immediately. When that happens, gift bags like the ones provided by the Royal Purple are essential.
“A lot of times we get a call that she needs to leave the community now,” she said. “He is still there, and the assault could have just happened. She walks in with just the cloths on her back—not even identification—so everything that the ladies at the Royal Purple give us, … we call them blessing bags.”
–with files from Jason Kerr/Daily Herald
