Each year, one in four reported rapes statewide are committed in Essex County, officials say.

An organization dedicated to helping those victims is in financial peril: the County Rape Care Center that operates out of the Family Services League in Montclair.

State and federal budget cuts have left the center with a $35,000 shortfall before new grants begin in March. Without the money, services will be compromised, including the rape hotline, and care packages which include clothes for victims who are leaving the hospital.

Fanta Nuradin, who has volunteered at the center since 2009, says. "We don't get paid, obviously the volunteers don't get paid but it hurts that we can't get more funding from the government, that we've been cut," Director Ursula Leibowitz explains that they've had to lay off most of their staff.