Dear Friends, 
I am once again reminded of how much you do out there in the world and how 
much you mean to me. Cindy Wolfson, our Illinois coordinator, and I met 
last week with Michelle Dempsey, who is new to the SW network, and she told 
us this story. She is a prosecutor for DV cases and she has a personal 
friend who she represented. This woman was afraid of getting an order for 
protection against her husband. It just so happened :-) that the day they 
went to the court house to get the order for protection the SW exhibit was 
in the court house. The woman stopped and read the stories of the women who 
had been victims in her area of the state and she said to the prosecutor, "I 
know I'm not alone now." She got her order for protection, left her husband 
and is now safe and on her way to a new life. You all did that for her. 
Believe it and be grateful for all that you do, no matter how small you may 
think your contribution is. You may save someone's life. 



WELCOME NEW EMAIL CORRESPONDENTS: 
Phyllis Willerscheid (Commission on Women/St. Paul Archdiocese, MN), Rebecca 
Ewing (Victim's Resource Center, Warner Roberts, GA), Fern Brown (Maryland 
SW effort, new email address), Cheryl Strausie, Eileen Abernathy (Meridian 
Health Systems) 


STATES AND COUNTRIES ON BOARD FOR OCTOBER/NOVEMBER SW EVENTS: 
Our goal is 50 states and 12 countries: Please let us know if you are scheduling events 
as soon as possible and get us the details later. There are 11 
states/countries on board: California, Cayman Islands, Georgia, Illinois, 
Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island 
Wyoming. 



NEWS FROM THE STATES/COUNTRIES: 


MASSACHUSETTS: 

Nancy, at Peace at Home in Boston sent us this announcement for a great 
resource and an update on their SW use in Boston: 
Peace at Home publishes a handbook, Domestic Violence: The Facts, a 
valuable, user-friendly domestic violence resource for victims and 
supportive bystanders, as well as domestic violence service providers. 
Peace at Home has created and designed an original methodology model for 
documenting and analyzing these statistics that can be replicated nationally 
and internationally Also available is our report: Homicides Related to 
Intimate Partner Violence in Massachusetts 1991-1995. It is a study which 
documents and examines all homicides that occurred as a result of intimate 
partner violence. To order go to our website: www.peaceathome.org. 
Peaceathme@aol.com 617-971-0143 We have a sliding scale fee for the 
handbooks: $.50 for businesses, $.25 for individuals, $.15 for nonprofits 
plus shipping. The homicide report is $5.00 per copy plus shipping. 

Great news for the MA Silent Witness. The first week in October they are 
being borrowed by the Spanish American Center and will be on display at a 
mall, city hall, and a variety of other places in Leominster, MA. Also, the 
Boston Public Library has agreed to let us display the exhibit for a week 
right in the lobby. Looks like October is going to be busy. 

*Good to know about that resource and about all the activity for the 
Witnesses around Boston. Great work. 


NEW YORK: 

Monica Blaizgis updates us on New York: 
Great news about our New York witnesses and an October event: When I was in 
RI, Nancy gave me the NCJW Stop Watch newsletter. There was a portion in 
there about the 3rd Annual NY Walks to End Domestic Violence. This event has 
become so successful that it is its own entity within NCJW. Over 3,000 
participants last year alone. I called NY section president, Rita Fishman. 
She said that they had a few witnesses at the event a few years ago but had 
trouble coordinating their transport, etc. I said I would be happy to 
tackle that piece of the event. We both agreed that it would be a real loss 
to NOT have the witnesses at an event like this. So, she invited me to 
attend an organizational meeting on July 24th. The walk this year will be on 
Oct. 21st in Battery Park City, downtown Manhattan. I will keep you posted 
on what develops. 

*Great news Monica. don't you love this collaboration. Those NY City Silent 
Witnesses will get a chance to speak loudly in October. 


TEXAS: 

This great update from Ashley Peterson at the Texas Council on Family 
Violence: 

Everything is going along great with the refurbishing. We're going to have a 
painting gathering in a few weeks to paint the new witnesses. All of the 
plaques are in and we are looking to unveil the finished witnesses in 
October. I'll keep you posted on any exhibits. Everyone is so excited about 
the project....it just makes me feel good when people read the stories and 
it motivates them to make changes and help others. 

*And it motivates us, Ashley to hear that you are refurbishing the 
Witnesses. With a fresh coat of paint, they will have more enthusiasm to go 
out again to tell their stories. 



WYOMING: 

Sharon Montagnino, from Cheyenne, writes us about the Wyoming plans for 
October: 

As far as an October events, as in the past we will have a statewide event 
on October 20th. This year it's in Gillette, WY. The domestic violence 
shelter program and the Victim Witness program in Gillette will host the 
event, with assistance from the statewide Silent Witness Committee. Programs 
will travel from all over the state with their silhouettes to Gillette for a 
day of honoring those who lost their lives to the battle of domestic 
violence. 

*Thanks for the statewide coordination of October SW events. It was a rare 
pleasure to be there last year. I'll never forget it. 





NEWS FROM WORLDWIDE HEADQUARTERS: 

Attention: Everyone who loves those miniature Silent Witness figures. They 
are now for sale again!!! 
The NCJW Office in Pittsburgh is producing them to sell to us. This is 
wonderful since our former source has dried up. They are offering these 
cardboard statues for $40 per 100 statues which includes shipping and 
handling. Sheri Minkoff is the contact sminkoff@juno.com or call the NCJW 
office at 412-421-6118. 


More good things on our web site: 
There is now a "contact us" logo on each page of our web site so it is easy 
for you to get to us with any questions or comments. We are putting together 
the new college section now and will be adding poetry and more photos soon. 
So if you are an active part of the SW exhibits near you and would like to 
be identified with us on our new billboards on the web, please send us your 
photo. You do not need to be a state coordinator to be included. Just be 
sure to include your name and city/state/country so we can identify you. And 
pretty soon you will be able to go to the web site and see the whole Silent 
Witness March video. Isn't this fun??? Our web supporter, Suzanne McGann, is 
so great to work with and we are adding some really exciting things these 
days. Go see them. 
www.silentwitness.net 


We need your help in collecting names of Colleges who have had Silent 
Witness exhibits: 
We are compiling a list of all the colleges who have used the SW exhibit for 
our college section of the web site and we need your help. 
If you know of a college that has had an event, let us know, and if they 
have made their own exhibit, also let us know. We deeply appreciate it. 
This is going to be a dynamite section of the web site and we have three 
wonderful people working on it with us. Thanks to Monica Blaizgis, Melanie 
Martin and Nancy Rafi for all this great work. 


Conference on Immigrant Children's Issues to be held in El Paso 
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of Texas and the Center 
for Law and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) are 
sponsoring a conference on "Immigration Issues and Children" on September 12 
- 14 in El Paso, Texas. The first day of the conference provides an 
overview of basic immigration issues affecting children. The second day of 
the conference is geared towards attorneys and accredited representatives 
who represent unaccompanied minors in removal proceedings. If you are 
interested in receiving a conference brochure, please contact Connie 
Dominguez by phone: (915) 747-8866 or e-mail: cadoming@utep.edu. 



I leave you today with a quote from Ivy Baker which might help all of us 
when we feel we are at an ending: 

"The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be 
only the beginning." 


Cheers, 

Janet 
jhagberg@mn.rr.com