Sisters, near Portland, OR is a group of women devoted to helping those women that were in battered and less fortunate homes to have a place to stay where they felt safe. Genny Nelson and Sandy Gooch were the two social workers that founded Sisters in 1979. They received their pay for a grant, a grant that helped them work at Boxcar Bertha's, which was housed by the Burnside Projects. They worked with women in the neighborhood and learned a lot about the community in general. In doing this work, they quickly learned that many of the women were victims of some sort of abuse. They made it their goal to find a place of shelter for these women.
They began questioning battered women as well as the homeless to find out what they needed the most. They then started the Sisters of the Road Café, a place where the poor or homeless people could come and get a nutritious meal for a low cost. Those that couldn't afford to pay for their meal were given the chance to work in exchange for the meal. They called this the Hot Meals and Barter Program. The Sisters also developed an employment-training program to give work training so the individuals could find gainful employment. The Sisters of the Road Café had three purposes in mind: give them a safe place to come to, provide good meals that they could afford and provide job-training skills.
In 1980, the name was changed to just to Sisters of the Road. The work they do at their café as well as their other programs have done much to help they've given to the less fortunate.
