A fundraiser at a local restaurant recently benefitted Bucks County's only domestic violence prevention organization.

Hickory Kitchen donated a portion of its proceeds from a fundraising day in December to A Woman's Place.

Restaurant owner Mike Markowitz said he organized the event after learning about a friend who escaped domestic violence in her past.

The fundraising event raised $525 for A Woman's Place.

A Woman's Place was founded in 1976, just two years after the first battered women's shelter in the nation opened in St. Paul, Minn. The local entity began as a storefront, drop-in counseling center in Sellersville, with a one-room apartment behind the office where women escaping violence could stay.

Now based out of Doylestown, A Woman's Place is the only nonprofit in Bucks County devoted to empowering women and ending domestic violence. It runs a residential shelter for women and children escaping abuse, as well as a 24-hour hotline, counseling, legal and medical advocacy, and a children’s program.

The hotline can be reached at 800-220-8116; for more information, visit A Woman's Place's website.