The Safe Shelter, Coastal Children’s Advocacy Center, Rape Crisis Center and the Chatham County Family Justice Center will all receive a $500,000 donation.

Story by: Jackson Kurtz

SAVANNAH, Ga. — In an unprecedented donation, four Chatham County victim services providers will soon receive a total of $2 million from District Attorney Meg Heap’s office.

The Safe Shelter, Coastal Children’s Advocacy Center, Rape Crisis Center and the Chatham County Family Justice Center will all receive a $500,000 donation.

This comes after the DA’s office received a $2 million settlement from a statewide illegal gambling case last year.

District Attorney Meg Heap says she decided to use those funds in helping those community organizations who took hard losses because of the pandemic.

“We have been struggling this year, we were gonna go into 2021 $300,000 in debt because we couldn’t have our gala and other fundraising activities were canceled, donation from the public had been down. So this was like Christmas to me,” said Cheryl Branch, executive director of Safe Shelter.

District Attorney Heap’s office says the funds from these types of settlements are limited by law, with direct victim services being one allowable expense.

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