In 1978, Caleb Corey first started attending YWCA Women’s Center meetings. He was three. His mom, Virginia Beck, served on the finance committee for the newly formed Kauai Women’s Center.
After attending the Aloha Preschool at St. Michael’s in Lihue, his mom would bring him to meetings, where he would play in the corner while the Women’s center committee members would work on trying to solve womens problems.
Preventing rape, assault, crisis intervention, and other women’s issues were starting to be big issues for the community. It was the very beginning of the whole assault prevention and domestic violence protection efforts for the YWCA.
Under the leadership of Cassie Welch, the first director, many things would happen. The first crisis care programs for survivors of assault, a battered women’s shelter for women and children, and finally, a house on Elua Street was given them by Margaret Littman, a key member of the YWCA.
Caleb Beck Corey and his mom moved to Palo Alto when he was a teen to pursue further education. Corey arrived just in time for the blooming of Silicon Valley’s tech world.
His love of computers led him from gaming to Apple Computer Hardware technical work, and eventually, he wound up at Qualys, a cloud security company. As a security network engineer he worked “way too much” but wound up with a stock option surprise this year.
Corey decided to donate a large amount of it to the YWCA, because, “Kauai has so much poverty.”
He usually donates to Shriner’s each year, and funds video games for kids in hospitals because the games helped him when he was at Shriners in Honolulu. This year he decided to help the YWCA.
“Shriner’s draws from a much larger pool of donors, as they draw from nationwide,” Corey said. “Kauai has a smaller group of donors and I wanted the funds to be used where they would make the greatest difference.”
Caleb and his mom will fund scholarships at the YWCA, assist with tech programs, and also start a Self Help Library. Books that will educate and empower women, children, and victims of violence and discrimination will be available to borrow.
If you know a book you love that made a difference to you, you are invited to “adopt a book” and donate it to the library. Just check the shelves, and when the book eventually walks away, replace that one book.
Corey, his mom, and the YWCA of Kauai are hoping Kauai donors will match the funds with gifts up to $50,000 to benefit YWCA programs.
