Marianne Hill, left, and Barb Osche, members of Soroptimist International of Butler County, help unpack kitchen wares Saturday at a house for a single mother in the Lighthouse Foundation's transitional living program. The group brought furniture and bedding, as well as items for the bathroom.

A new year will mean a new start for a mother and her 6-year-old son thanks to the efforts of the A Place to Lay My Head project of the Soroptimist International of Butler County and the Lighthouse Foundation.

On Monday, the small family will move into a South Side apartment furnished by members of the Soroptomists, who spent Saturday morning bringing in bedding, kitchenware, living room furniture and appliances.

Susan Levish, county Soroptomist president, said the group collects gently used furniture and housewares and buys new beds, bedding and pillows for women who are entering the transitional living program of the Lighthouse Foundation, based in Middlesex Township.

Susan Hess, the case manager for the Lighthouse transitional living program, said she works with women who are victims of domestic violence or have drug, alcohol or mental problems.

“They are in the program for 18 months and I walk alongside of them,” Hess said. “I help them get their GEDs, find work, get treatment, attend parenting classes, to get them to become self-sustaining.”

“A lot of times they come into the program with a garbage bag full of clothes and that's it,” she said.

And that's where A Place to Lay My Head comes in. Organized by the late Soroptomist president Diane M. Dancik, the program started by providing pillows and mattresses and grew to include furniture, pots and pans, tables and even small gifts for the children.

Read more in Monday's Butler Eagle.