Peggy Revell
After almost two months of public input and deliberation, the Atikokan Crisis Centre finally has a new name: the Rainy River District Women’s Shelter of Hope.
As first reported in yesterday’s Daily Bulletin, the centre’s board of directors announced its decision Monday after collecting names and logo suggestions from people across the district during September and October.
The board credited Marie Donohue of Atikokan with the new name, which came together from several suggestions she had submitted, noted executive director Donna Kroocmo.
“From hers, she used the word ‘hope’ and we loved it,” Kroocmo said.
“[But] credit should also be given to all those who submitted choices, and rest assured that they were each examined very carefully for the final result,” she added, noting there were 32 submissions altogether.
“A lot is in a name, and you have to be so careful,” Kroocmo stressed. “And I think that’s why it was such a difficult decision.”
The quest for a new name began almost two months ago when the board decided to find a one that better represented what the centre does to provide shelter and support for women and children, as well as the region it encompasses.
While the board had hoped to choose a new name at its monthly meeting in October, the final decision was postponed due to the volume of suggestions submitted by the public.
Along with the new name, the centre will be adopting a brand new logo: a fuchsia-coloured umbrella, with the phrase from their mission statement, “We begin by valuing ourselves,” forming the bottom of the umbrella.
“[Donohue] also drew a rainbow over, and we liked that ‘arching’ sort of idea,” Kroocmo noted.
“The board themselves came up with the umbrella—which made total sense to me.”
The new logo will be fuchsia in colour to match the centre’s website and billboards.
The use of an umbrella also suits the structure of the centre, Kroocmo said.
“The Atikokan Crisis Centre was always an umbrella organization,” she remarked, explaining the one board oversaw two separate entities—the women’s emergency shelter and the second stage housing.
“They’re funded separately, they’re completely separate entities, and they’re definitely different mandates,” Kroocmo said.
“The second stage housing is basically independent living for women who require an additional element of security and safety.
“The women’s shelter is in that first stage where they need the ultimate in security and safety.
“So it is two completely different operations and so to me when they came up with the idea of the umbrella, that just completely made total sense,” Kroocmo added.
“So I loved it.”
There will be no changes at all towards service as the centre switches over to its new name, Kroocmo stressed.
“We’ve got four billboards throughout the district that need changing. We’ve got our letterhead, our brochures,” she said, referring to the name change process.
“We’ve got a lot of work and a lot of expense, so we’re going to kind of do it gradually because we don’t have a whole big bunch of money to do it all right away,” she reasoned.
“But probably we’re hoping by two years from now everything will be switched,” she added. “It will be operating fully under the new name.”
