Watch the highway this week for a very small sight. An Austin “Mini,” a rare imported car, will pass through Iowa as a fundraiser for a special group of abused women. Paula Lucas explains it’s a tour to benefit her “American Women Overseas Domestic Abuse Hotline.”Lucas says she was abused while living in a foreign country, fled home to the U-S with her three sons and went through a long legal battle. Lucas says she created a crisis line based on what she wished had been in place when she needed it. Lucas says the State department and U-S Justice Department refer women to her overseas domestic-abuse hotline, though the government doesn’t give them any money. She met Erik McVay, a collector of the discontinued Austin “Mini,” at a meeting of their Boy Scout sons. Lucas says McVay is driving from a car collectors’ convention in New Jersey, across the country to Oregon to publicize the hotline.McVay’s due to spend Tuesday night (July 10) in Des Moines on his way to Portland, Oregon. For more information on the domestic-abuse crisis line for American women overseas, visit www.awoscentral.com on the web. The international toll-free hotline is 866-USWOMEN.
