TILTON — The Vermilion County Rape Crisis Center officially opened in its new location mid-August. An open house Wednesday celebrated that milestone.

Formerly located in Danville’s Your Family Resource Connection, the organization now occupies the former Sawbucks banquet center behind the Southgate Plaza, Tilton’s strip mall that once housed Eagle grocery store.

The decorations for the open house included symbols of the season: cornstalks, pumpkins, scarecrows and flowers in shades of yellow, orange and red. The smiling faces of center employees, board of directors, state officials and other guests reflected the pride in this organization’s achievements and the help it offers to victims of sexual assault.

Nancy Crowder, executive director of the group, showed guests around the new offices. She felt especially proud when two visitors, Carol Corgan and Carrie Ward, arrived from Springfield.

The two are the assistant director and grants director, respectively, of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the par-ent group to 33 centers across the state. ICASA provides funds to all these groups and supported the Vermilion County Rape Crisis Center separation from YFRC. Formerly known as REACH, the services the center now offers remain the same as before.

“Here are our projections for March through June,” Crowder told these two guests. “We met them all.”

“You overcame the odds,” Corgan said. That was a reference to the separation from YFRC, the long search for a suitable location that followed and the June flooding in Tilton that delayed the center’s opening.

More people are finding our services now,” Crowder said. “We’re more accessible here.

“I can’t wipe the grin off my face,” she added.

Victims, or survivors, as staff prefers to call their clients, can receive help 24-hours-a-day following a sexual assault. Not only does the staff provide counseling, it also accompanies clients to the hospital and to court, depending on the circumstances. All services are free of charge and confidential.

Outreach programs travel to any county school or organization that requests them, where staff provides age appropriate programs.

Board President Larry Weatherford said the group “wants to make the community more aware of the incidence of sexual assault. People still tell us they didn’t know rape was such a problem.

“It is, and this is the group that can help,” he said.

Debbie Mitchell of Tilton survived her own childhood experiences with sexual assault.

“I tried to ignore what happened to me, but it wouldn’t go away. I’m ready to volunteer and help others, ” she said.

Vermilion County Rape Crisis Center Counselor Suzzen Borcz explained to Mitchell that 40 hours of volunteer training are required of those who want to work directly with clients.

“We always need people,” Borcz said.

FYI

The Vermilion County Rape Crisis Center, 1630 Georgetown Road, Tilton can be reached 24-hours a day at 446-1337 or (866) 617-3224.