Liberty House closes out 2024 with new facility playground, reflects on year of service

ALBANY – This year saw record-breaking numbers for crisis calls and shelter nights at Liberty House, a domestic violence shelter in Albany.

Diane Rogers, the executive director, said the shelter was at capacity more than ever.

“Typically, as soon as somebody’s leaving, somebody’s coming right back in,” she said. “2024 has been a very busy year.”

Still, Liberty House has kept up with the need and even gone further to provide comfort to the domestic violence victims it serves.

One week before Christmas, shelter staff were wrapping up preparation for their Christmas Adopt-a-Family program. This year, the shelter facilitated the “adoption” of 23 families to provide Christmas presents to their kids. Rogers said this is the largest number since she took on the role. 

Liberty House also is wrapping up its 2024 with a brand new playground at its facility. The shelter raised money through its 2024 Play it Forward Campaign, which launched in January, in which it asked 2,024 donors to contribute $20 to fund the building of a new playground. Rogers said the goal was $45,000, and it raised $55,000 by August.

“Not only were we able to get the playground that we wanted, we also were able to add to it some commercial-grade bench seating in a shade so that the moms will have a shaded area to sit while the kids play,” she said. 

Rogers said the shelter houses more than 100 children each year. 

“When they come here, they’re coming from homes where they have seen violence,” she said. “They have lived in a home with uncertainty and fear and experienced a lot of trauma. We want, while they’re here, for them to have some normalcy and some calm and some fun.”

It was also the shelter’s first full year accepting pets alongside its clients seeking shelter.

In October 2023, Liberty House opened its pet shelter. Since then, it’s accepted 15 pets and had 489 nights where a pet was housed there. 

“A big barrier to victims leaving their abuser is if they have a pet and they don’t leave their pet behind,” Rogers said.

The shelter provides a space for clients to visit their pets, relax, watch TV and love on their pet. 

Liberty House also partnered with the Austin Tyler Foundation, an organization that raises awareness of domestic abuse to women and their children, throughout the year for its 20th anniversary. 

The organization’s creation was inspired by the murder of Austin Tyler, a 4-year-old boy who was shot and killed by his father who also shot and injured his mother, Ladonna Wilkerson, in Albany in 2004.

This year, Tyler would have been 24.

For the foundation’s 20th year, Liberty House partnered with the Austin Tyler Foundation on a number of events to raise awareness and funds, including the 5K Austin Tyler Run. 

Each year, the foundation fills old purses with personal hygiene items. Liberty House was able to distribute these bags to many of its clients.

“Little partnerships like that make a big difference to a woman who is going through trauma and has absolutely nothing and is starting over,” Rogers said. “So it’s just any way we can make the individuals we’re working with here feel better about themselves.”

Rogers said she’s proud of all the shelter has accomplished in 2024 — a new pet shelter and a new playground coming off just four years in its new shelter space.  Its annual Gala in October also saw the most funds raised ever.

“We want it to feel like home,” she said. “We want it to be a place of rest and peace, where they can kind of catch their breath and figure out next steps to start their lives over. Over the last four years, we are very proud of where we’ve come.”