This year's third annual "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes" was expected to bring out more than 300 participating men who would slip into stilettos, pumps and chunky slides and march through downtown San Jose for the April 20 event.

That means outfitting 300 men with 300 pairs of ladies' footwear and paying for it on a shoestring budget.

One of Davis' first stops was the thrift shops, but she didn't find enough shoes there to foot the bill. Her quest for large-sized ladies' shoes then took her to some unlikely places.

"I've gone to stripper joints," she says, adding with a laugh, "It was such a sleazy experience."

The light-hearted event that takes community leaders and residents on a high-heeled walk approaches the serious issue during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Davis has spent the past 21 years working to draw attention to the taboo subject.

It was the rape of her sister-in-law in 1984 that introduced Davis to the advocacy program of YWCA.

Elected as the family support point-person, Davis accompanied her sister-in-law through the ensuing trial, sitting next to the appointed advocate from the YWCA's Rape Crisis Center.

Impressed with the advocate and the program, Davis decided she would like to join as a volunteer.

"I started that day because they had a training starting that night," she says.

Six months later she was offered a job as a manager and seven years ago she took over as director of the rape crisis center.

The Utah native, who has seen a lot of changes in Almaden during the 30 years she and her husband have lived here, says that the annual number of rape victims the center services has not changed.

"Our numbers unfortunately are fairly static," she says.

Rape and sexual assault are believed to be highly underreported, and statistics show that one in six women has experienced "an attempted or completed" rape at some point in their lifetime, according to a 1998 study jointly reported by the National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That same report stated that 54 percent of surveyed victims said they were under the age of 18 at the time when the rape was committed.

The YWCA of Silicon Valley's Rape Crisis Center provided free counseling services to 1,000 new victims last year.

Davis' degree in English literature has served her well in grant writing for the organization, she says. The city of San Jose presented her with a commendation for her contributions and dedication to the center at a council meeting in April 2004.

Education and intervention by the center, which include such programs as child abuse prevention, teen empowerment, self-defense and rape prevention classes, are a primary focus to prevention. A mother of five and grandmother to eight, Davis says there is a special emphasis on talking with and educating children.

"We talk to kids about building self-esteem and we tell boys that we don't want them to end up being fingerprinted," she says.

She oversees a paid staff of 10, including one paid counselor, and 55 volunteers who perform counseling, training or support services. Those counselors, who include six men, responded to victims in hospitals about 500 times last year, she says.

Davis has gone on calls at all hours of the day and night and admits the subject matter of her work can be depressing and all consuming. To relax, she takes solace in the earth.

"I love to garden. It's therapeutic," she says.

When she's not digging in the dirt she's hiking across it in Almaden Quicksilver Park. Even at those times when she's doing things to forget about the weighty topic of rape, she still practices what is preached at the center. She says her head is always on a swivel, looking for a safe place to run--she calls it a "healthy paranoia"--and on her daily hikes she is never alone.

A group of friends accompanies her in reading adventures as well. Five to 10 Almaden women belong to the same book club as Davis. Reading is a passion, and if it weren't for the book club she says she would read only thriller or mystery books by authors such as Patricia Cornwall or John Grisham, but she thinks those stories would hit too close to home.

"I don't want to be entertained by what I do," she says.

A strong support system at home-- led by her husband--and a strong faith keep her from feeling overwhelmed by her job, and she is quick to give credit for her own strengths and accomplishments. The folks in the office get a nod from her, too.

"If I have any gift at all it is the ability to put together a great team," she says.

The YWCA Rape Crisis Center's 24-hour crisis line is 408.287.3000 or 650.493.7273. For more information about the programs offered by the center, call the main telephone number 408.295.4011, or visit www.ywca-scv.org.