Draft:Betty Griffin Center

Betty Griffin Center is a nonprofit agency in St. Johns County, Florida that serves more than 1,000 survivors of domestic and sexual abuse annually, operates a 24-hour help line, emergency shelter, provides professional counseling for victims of domestic and sexual abuse, provides age-appropriate violence prevention training and operates two thrift stores at Julington Square and Anastasia Square to assist in funding the agency’s ongoing operations.

In addition to providing a confidential shelter, available 24 hours a day for domestic and sexual abuse survivors and their children, the agency also provides sexual assault recovery services: including confidential counseling, advocacy, and forensic medical exams (whether the victim is reporting the incident to law enforcement or not), and provides the immediate medical and forensic needs of rape victims including privacy and professional care through a Rape Crisis Center at UF St. Johns Hospital  in St. Augustine.

Other programs include confidential counseling provided free by licensed therapists, support groups, court advocacy, where staff and volunteers are available to assist with applying for an Injunction for Protection, court appearances, personal advocacy, domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy and referrals. All referrals to a Betty Griffin Center attorney are made on a case-by-case basis for legal representation through the injunction process.

The nonprofit agency is funded by individual donors, grants and fundraising events held throughout the year. The Betty Griffin Center 5K Run for Peace event has been held for nine consecutive years (held virtually during the COVID 19 Pandemic in 2020).

Other annual events include the Fashion for Action fundraiser, which celebrated its third consecutive year in 2023, along with an annual art and poetry calendar contest involving submissions from St. Johns County Students , which has been conducted for more than 10 years.

Funds are also raised through the operation of two thrift shoppes -- the original located at Anastasia Square Shopping Center in St. Augustine and a second added at Julington Square, located in the western part of St. Johns County, Florida.

In 2023, the St. Augustine Thrift Shoppe underwent and extensive renovation and Momswhothink.com, a popular blog post since 2000, named the St. Augustine location among the eighth-best thrift stores in St. Augustine.

The current CEO is Kelly Franklin, who was appointed to the position on Oct. 1, 2001 to replace retiring Joyce Mahr, who had been with the organization for 25 years and served as CEO for 13 years.

The nonprofit agency's 2019 Audited Financial Statement indicates its total annual budget is $5.9 million. A board of directors oversees the CEO. For the 2023-24 Fiscal Year, there was a 13-member board of directors in place chaired by Jayne Evans, the CEO of Heart Touch Communications for Nonprofits.

The Betty Griffin Center was founded in 1990 by concerned citizens in St. Augustine, Florida. It was incorporated as the Safety Shelter of St. Johns County to develop plans to provide shelter for local survivors of domestic violence and their children.

The name of the organization is linked to Elkton, Florida resident Betty Griffin. According to Betty Griffin's granddaughter, Mary Alice Colson, her family was planning to tear down her grandmother’s former home. This was occurring at the same time St. Augustine Sherriff Neil Perry supported establishing a permanent shelter for victims of domestic violence in the city in the mid 1980s.

The house was sold and the proceeds from the sale were used to purchase a new house that would become the first shelter for victims of domestic and sexual violence in St. Johns County, Florida. The founders of the nonprofit decided to keep the Betty Griffin name associated with the new location.

Because of these origins, the organization was known as the Betty Griffin House from 1990 until 2016. With funding received through the Community Foundation of Northeast Florida in 2015, the organization rebranded as Betty Griffin Center in October 2016 to a brand that captured all the services provided "beyond providing shelter for those fleeing domestic or sexual abuse". A redesign of its original logo of a house to that of a tulip, signifying the nutrients the tulip stores to rejuvenate each year and connecting with the nonprofit agency’s mission to help people build new life after domestic or sexual abuse, was designed by Brunet-Garcia Advertising, with Whittington PR handling the promotion of the name change and the redesign of the agency's website.