Nine years ago, when local wife and mother of two Darla Skolnekovich watched in horror as families were displaced by Hurricane Katrina, an idea began to grow in her heart. She shares this memory:
“I saw a photograph of an elderly African American woman lying on the floor of the New Orleans Superdome three days after Hurricane Katrina’s ruinous sweep. She was curled up, lying next to strangers amidst frenzied loud chaos, trying to protect the very few precious possessions she had been able to salvage before being torn from her destroyed home. This is our best, for our citizens, in the United States of America…and we call ourselves civilized?”
It struck Darla deeply, and five years later when she was given an assignment as an engineering student at CSU-P, she knew exactly what she wanted to create. Her passion was to design shelters for displaced women and children of the world. These aren’t your every day shelters either, these would be durable and secure, yet made from lower cost materials like cardboard.
“I began hungrily reading all the refugee interviews I could find and researching the experiences of victims of traumatic displacement all over the world and in those broken eyes, I saw Sadie, my baby girl over and over again.”
Her daughter inspired her to name her project SadieShelter.
We recently interviewed Darla to learn more about her project and her passion.
Why the need for SadieShelter?
“70 Reported rapes occurred inside the Superdome within 72 hours after Katrina. There are estimates that as many as 2000 violent assaults, including murder, occurred and went unpunished, over the next 3 weeks within and around this encampment. The occurrences of theft are too high to have been estimated by our government. And we haven’t even begun to discuss the dangers faced by victims of traumatic displacement from exposure to disease, temperature, terrain and climate.
These numbers are miniscule when compared to the astronomically high occurrence rate of systematic, violent, often deadly assault, perpetrated against the most vulnerable victims of traumatic displacement, primarily women and children, around the world. More than one million Syrian refugees are enduring/existing/holding on by a thread within hastily raised encampments in Jordan right now. Rival gangs of mercenaries employ the practice of systematic rape as their method of controlling and subverting these refugees. As many of the adult men have been “removed” from these camps, women and children are left to fend for themselves against armed criminals…in tents.
The suffering endured by victims of traumatic displacement caused by continual and prolonged unimpaired exposure to disease, extreme weather conditions, difficult terrain and temperatures is revolting and unnecessary. People in Haiti are still living unprotected from exposure and dying from cholera every day.
There are so many desperate examples, each more crushing than the last. It’s all so huge, so overwhelming. I have been blessed with this one little idea, a chance to try and I’m taking it.”
How can others help in this cause?
” I wrote hundreds of letters, including one to Senator Bennet’s office, describing my project and requesting help to realize our potential. Senator Bennet’s office responded and connected us with Steve Imke at the Colorado Springs Small Business Development Center, where I received free but priceless and frequent business counseling. Steve then referred SadieShelter H&S, Inc. to Ric Denton at the Technology Incubator, who then introduced us to a local business leader, Bill Miller, who then contacted his colleague and friend, General Gene Renuart to discuss the potential of SadieShelter H&S, Inc. on our behalf.
Through these amazing, generous and accomplished community leaders, we are connected with contacts within the procurement offices of the Red Cross and the UNCHR.
In order to fund the construction of the 200 requested full-size SadieShelter “HomeKit” structures to send to these aid agencies for consideration, testing and requests for modifications, I have set up a “crowd-funding” online campaign through the online funding site, “Indiegogo”. The link to this funding campaign is: and visit the website HERE.
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