By Claudia Loucks
Current Exchange

Nedda Simon of Princeton is living proof that it is never too late to stop creating. Simon founded Freedom House 40 years ago to fill a need to provide services for both sexual abuse and domestic violence.

Simon will be 91 years of age Dec. 28, and she recently launched a new and creative endeavor with a line of greeting cards inspired by her candor and words of wisdom she shared as a well-known WZOE radio personality and as a Bureau County Republican columnist.

Simon’s line of greeting cards symbolizes the fact that it’s never too late to start a new project. Her friend, Diana Whitney, Galva, designed the artwork for the cards, and Simon has selected words from her full and varied career to add meaning to the cards.

Suitable for all occasions, the cards express encouragement and hope in simple, yet elegant terms.

The cards primarily contain words of encouragement, for example:

“Hope helps us come back from illness and despair.

It carries us through the tough times.

Hope is within us.

Sometimes all it takes is a glimmer to restore balance in our life and allow us to move forward.”

Whitney created the designs for the cards and she said she and Simon “have been talking about doing this for a long time.”

They began working on the project this summer and the designs on the cards were printed from original art work by Whitney.

A select number of cards are available exclusively at Flowers by Julia in Princeton, and at Handverk Galleri in Bishop Hill.

Many people know Nedda Simon for her involvement with Freedom House.

Whitney shared how Freedom House came to be through Simon’s efforts…Simon was serving as a drug and alcohol counselor for women. Some of the women would travel to Simon’s office in Princeton with bruises, and Nedda was not quite sure what to do until the time she was called to the hospital where she found one of her clients to be beyond recognition as she had been beaten so badly. She knew then she had to do something and she was able to open a first shelter (Freedom House) in Wyanet and the first occupants were a woman and her five children.

The services offered by Freedom House continue to grow and the program has served Bureau, Henry, Marshall, Putnam and Start counties since 1983, providing both domestic and sexual violence services.

Earlier this year, Freedom House opened an Outreach Office in Geneseo at 105 South Chicago St.