Patrisha McLean, founder/president of Finding Our Voices, with Mary Kamradt, the group’s new full-time executive assistant. A chart Kamradt created shows the group’s disbursement of $113,640 in two years through its fund empowering Maine women survivors of domestic abuse to get out and stay out and keep their children safe as well. Most of the money went to shelter and car expenses. Photo courtesy of Finding Our Voices

More than $100,000 has been distributed from Finding Our Voices to bring safety, freedom, and comfort to Maine women and children survivors of domestic abuse through the group’s Get Out Stay Out Fund.

In two years $113,640 was disbursed to 184 women from every county in Maine, about 80% of whom are mothers of young children, according to a news release from Patrisha McLean, president/founder of the grassroots survivor-powered nonprofit.

The money has mostly funded shelter, car, legal, utility and food expenses to enable Maine women to flee domestic violence and take their first steps toward independence.

This includes short-term emergency motel stays, apartment rent and security deposits; gas cards, car insurance, registration and repairs; legal assistance obtaining a restraining order and pushing back against attempts by a violent ex to get custody of the children as well as unsupervised visits with them.

“Our sister-support funding,” said McLean, “mitigates the financial abuse i.e. control that is a key factor in trapping women and children in dangerous family situations by providing the resources necessary to escape, and to stay gone.”

McLean said that with its quick response the group has staved off evictions and in one case the repossession of a car scheduled for that afternoon. The car owner let Finding Our Voices know they were her “Hail Mary pass” to keep her job and chance of financial independence.

Recently, $380 from the fund took the lock off of a storage unit that contained all of a woman’s possessions, including photos, artwork and health records of her child.

The fund also provided diapers and formula for a woman who fled with her infant from her abusive ex.

Most disbursements come with a personal message of sister-support as well as helpful books and a natural, healing balm created especially for Finding Our Voices by Tracey Wylie on her Union farm.

Finding Our Voices works with a wide and growing network of referral partners from across the state for this funding, including homeless shelters, domestic abuse agencies, district attorney offices, Maine Association for New Americans, therapists, Maine Behavioral Health, Community Action Partners, recovery networks, and employee navigation departments at such companies as Goodwill.

According to McLean, the Get Out Stay Out fund was seeded in 2021 with a $50,000 grant from the Sunshine Lady Foundation. Boosts since then include private donations and grants from the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation, 100-plus Women Who Care Southern Maine, and WEX Inc.

For more information, visit findingourvoices.net.

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