When Claudia Goates' mother and sister were brutally murdered in December, she decided to turn tragedy into inspiration.
Goates' mother, Beth Potts, 72, and her sister, Kaye Tiede, 51, were shot and killed in the Tiede's cabin near Oakley on Dec. 22, 1990, by two men who had walked away from a halfway house in Salt Lake City.Since then Goates has decided that something needs to be done for those at risk of developing the kind of behavior that led to the untimely death of her loved ones.
"After this happened with mother and Kaye, I just thought, hey, we've got to get going and do something so this doesn't happen again," Goates said.
She found her solution and solace when she and Joseph S. Glasser created the International Association for Families. The organization, which she heads, held a breakfast meeting to introduce their plans and ask for community support.
"We really do have a vision that we are going to make a difference in people's lives," she said. "We want to be on the cutting edge of resources and developments."
The organization plans to help its members by providing help for families before too much damage has been done, she said.
Goates has worked for two years with parolees. As a volunteer, she's helped them get jobs, housing, clothing, etc.
But after suffering the tragic loss of her mother and sister she decided that what she'd been doing wasn't enough.
"We really want to go in and not just snip away at leaves," she said. "We want to pull it out at the roots."
The group that turned out to support the three-month-old organization also heard from County Commissioner Mike Stewart.
Stewart, the past-president of the National Association of Counties, has been an advocate of strong family values. He talked about the money that government spends helping shattered families recover - social service money.
"People are drowning and nobody's going upstream and asking who's throwing them in," he said.
Goates knows she can't strengthen the family alone, but she's counting on support from the business and private sectors to help educate people about the need for strong families.
And if it works, "maybe their deaths were not totally in vain," she said. Anyone interested in joining can call 533-4051.