Emergency funding totaling more than $53,000 has been raised through a rapid response Safety First for Women Fund, according to a news release from Kimberly Crichton, executive director of the Maine Women’s Fund, based in Portland. This specialized fund was created to meet the urgent needs of women and girls across the state. Funders and advocates quickly responded and within six weeks, gifts totaling $40,000 were received from the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation, Sam L. Cohen Foundation, and the PRBB Foundation and over $13,000 from 59 different individuals.
“Over our 30-year history, approximately 30% of our giving has focused on improving personal safety and ending violence. The Safety First for Women Fund is a rapid-response emergency fund that reflects the Maine Women’s Fund long-term commitment to ending violence for those living in all the communities we serve,” said Crichton in the release. “We are thrilled to provide $10,000 to the Maine Council on Aging to support their powerful advocacy for greater safety for direct care workers, $27,791 to the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence in support of the work of their nine member resource centers across the State of Maine and $15,439 to the Wabanaki Women’s Coalition in support of the work of their five member domestic and sexual violence advocacy centers throughout the Wabanaki territories.”
Systemic violence against women, violence against Black and Brown people, violence against LGBTQ+ people, violence against poor people, violence against aging and disabled people is all interconnected. The foundation know it cannot end violence against women and children without ending all violence. There is no gender justice without racial justice. The Safety First for Women Fund was created to provide financial support and visibility for these powerful coalitions working at the forefront of equity challenges in this very moment.
The foundation also proud to be amplifying the voices of survivors raising awareness about domestic violence with a $2,000 Swift Social Justice Grant to Finding Our Voices that has filled midcoast towns with survivor stories hung in downtown business windows. The awareness raising is working, with the local resource center reporting that several people have called the domestic violence hotline seeking support after seeing the banners around town.
Domestic violence accounts for approximately half of all Maine homicides. In some Wabanaki communities, women have combined sexual and domestic violence rates as high as 80%. Direct care workers, some of Maine’s lowest wage workers who provide the personal care for the elderly and disabled, were without adequate access to personal protection equipment and access to testing at the time this fund was started.
“We are honored to have had the opportunity to mobilize our community around these issues and we are deeply grateful to the 59 individuals and the three foundations who trusted and invested in the Maine Women’s Fund knowledge of the landscape, understanding of the places where other funders were investing, and identification of some of the most pressing unmet needs facing women and girls in Maine and the Wabanaki territories were,” said Board Chairwoman Janice Rogers. “Every gift we’ve ever made is reflective of someone’s belief in our work, in the power of women seeing and investing in each other.”
Learn more at mainewomensfund.org.
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