FOR A GOOD CAUSE -- Margi Sherman

Story by Lolita Harper; photo by {tk}

Margi Sherman said the most help she can give is to just sit there.

When the 54-year-old mentors women who have been battered, the best

thing she can do is sit and listen, she said.

“Any time you’re going through hard stuff, it is nice to have someone

to bring it all to,” Sherman said.

Sherman is a mentor and also a board member at Human Options, an

organization determined to stop the cycle of domestic violence. Human

Options runs a shelter and long-term housing in Orange County. Both

locations are undisclosed to protect the women and children from their

former abusers.

Sherman, a Newport Beach resident, mentors a woman who has

successfully completed both 30 days at the shelter and time at the

long-term facility. The woman she mentors, whose name is withheld to

protect her identity, is now trying to get used to being a single mom and

piece together her future.

Although the woman has been away from her abuser for more than a year,

she still needs a support system for her new life, Sherman said.

“She was ready to build her new life with people beyond the shelter,

and I told her, ‘I’m going to volunteer and we’re going to have a

friendship that is all about you,”’ Sherman said.

Although Sherman loves the children, no kids are allowed at their

functions.

“That time is all about her, not her kids, not her ex-husband, just

her,” Sherman said.

Sherman, who also raises funds for Human Options, sits at lunches --

at least twice a month -- and listens to exciting stories about her

friend’s new job or more frightful accounts of how she has had to hide

and protect herself and her children from their abuser.

“People are more amazing than we dare dream. Each individual is

capable of such courage and grace and compassion,” Sherman said. “But at

the same time, each of us is capable of some really terrible stuff. So it

is really exciting to help find people a way to get their needs met so

they can be courageous and graceful and passionate and not have to resort

to the horrible things.”