Miss America will help COVE open its new facility Feb. 17

Carrie Kosla announces the Feb. 17 grand opening for COVE’s new facility at the Ludington Public Library Wednesday morning.

LUDINGTON – Communities Overcoming Violent Encounters (COVE) will be hosting its grand opening of its new facility, located at 906 East Ludington Avenue from 3-6 p.m., February 17. Fundraising Event and Community Outreach Coordinator, Carrie Kosla was very excited to announce the news at this morning’s press conference at the Ludington Public Library and she was thrilled to announce that 2015 Miss America, Kira Kazantsev will also be on hand to represent her platform Love Shouldn’t Hurt: Protecting Women Against Domestic Violence. She will then host the grand opening reception dinner from 6:30-9:30 at Lincoln Hills Golf Club, where she will speak about her cause and also perform her vocal talents for the audience.

“The stars have aligned for us,” Kosla said. “Miss America is coming to the grand opening to represent her platform. We were one of the first organizations to bring her and her team was very enthusiastic to come. I was on the phone the day after she won trying to get her here.”

The new facility boosts new offices, a community room, donation station, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners unit and six individual apartments for families to live in while staying with the organization. These apartments will include living quarters, along with a kitchen, where the family can stay together during their time of grief and through the beginning stages of their healing process. Kosla stated that the new facility offers a lot more space and essentials for the clients and the staff as well.

“It will really bring the clients together with the staff,” she said. “Travel was always an issue before and in the old building, if a mother came in with four kids, they had no privacy and that really can slow down the healing process. The new facility will offer more privacy. We’ve really taken it up a notch for the clients.”

Kosla hopes that with the new facility coming to Ludington, more communities will also see how people stood behind the cause, hopefully creating more facilities like this one in other areas.

“We know we aren’t the only place with these problems,” she said. “So many people were involved. Hopefully other people will see how our community supported us and they will jump on board as well creating their own facilities.”