GREENFIELD — Local advocates working to end domestic violence, survivors and their loved ones gathered under the Los Tres Hermanos Restaurant pavilion on Thursday night with a simple message for survivors: “You are not alone.”
“In this time, in this culture, for Franklin County, for the North Quabbin, what’s really powerful is feeling like your neighbors care, that they care what happens to you, and that they won’t sit silently by if you are harming someone,” said Amanda Sanderson, executive director of the Resilience Center of Franklin County. “The more the community comes together and comes to these events and becomes more knowledgeable, and people get to share their stories so bravely and so powerfully, people can really feel the impact and understand, ‘Oh, I don’t see this every day, but every day, this is happening.'”
In Massachusetts, murder and manslaughter cases related to domestic violence rose nearly 20% in 2024, according to the latest report from the State Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team. The issue made headlines locally in April, when Emma MacDonald was killed at the UMass Campus Center Hotel, allegedly at the hands of her husband, UMass chef Jeffrey MacDonald.
“Please remember that the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters we have lost were people that were funny, kind, caring and loved,” Bailey McCoy, the domestic violence intervention projects coordinator for the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, told the audience. “They had their own stories, dreams, relationships and lives that mattered. They are not a statistic — they are human beings who deserve to be remembered that way.”
The Northwestern District Attorney’s Office organized the event, titled “Voices Carry: Honoring Domestic Violence Survivors,” with the Franklin County/North Quabbin Domestic Violence Task Force, a network of organizations with the same mission to “believe in and support survivors,” as Sanderson described. Leaders within the task force like Sanderson shared the resources their organizations extend to survivors, from home visits to counseling from peers who have experienced domestic violence and education aimed at prevention.
McCoy then returned to the podium to share the experiences behind her commitment to supporting local survivors.
As a young adult, McCoy met someone whose charisma on the surface gave way to a violent nature underneath. She described his anger with her growing when she confided in someone about the abuse and reported it. Eventually, he committed suicide.
In the aftermath, she recalled distancing herself from friends and family, being told she was “too sad” for social settings and grappling with false rumors about her own story.
“Every time someone chose to believe in those rumors, it felt like a piece of me was dying,” she recalled. “I didn’t understand why it took [you hearing] the gruesome details of my abuse before you believed I was a true victim, but those were things that happened and the things people don’t see or hear about when you think of domestic violence — the self blame, the self hatred, shame, guilt, anger, despair.”
Through tears, she read a letter she wrote soon after her abuser died. Her words distilled feelings of worthlessness and a longing for a state of peace not haunted by the past. While she stressed that “there’s no getting over it,” she described her past pain pushing her to “create a space for others with similar stories to be heard and loved.”
“Being able to support survivors and having conversations where people say to me, ‘You felt that way?’ or ‘I thought I was the only one,'” she said, “that just means everything to me.”
On McCoy’s desk sits a photo of her family “to remind [her] every day that I’m not doing this just for myself but for the loved ones who didn’t get the justice that they deserved.”
Like McCoy, Gabriela Palacios, the task force coordinator, decided to not shut out her trauma, but channel it into her work as a community advocate at the Resilience Center of Franklin County. She described two abusive relationships that involved multiple trips to the hospital, police responses and domestic violence advocates checking in when they noticed her bruises at work.
“Ironically though, I didn’t leave for myself,” she said of the first relationship. “I left because I truly believed that I was going to die, and I couldn’t bear the thought of my partner spending the rest of their life in prison because of me. Looking back now, I realize how deeply abuse can change the way that we think.”
About two years ago, a serious incident led her to leave her second abusive relationship before she could carry out her “carefully planned escape.” Her future looked foggy. With two suitcases and her two dogs in her car 1,900 miles from the home, family and friends her abuser had isolated her from, she spent hours in a Wendy’s parking lot trying to plot her next move.
“So I chose to stay here and figure it out,” Palacios said. “I slowly began piecing my life back together and somewhere along the way I was able to find purpose in helping other survivors. … Today I can stand here and say before you that I’m still here, I made it through and now I have the privilege of helping others do the same, and that is something that my abusers will never be able to take away from me.”
The audience whooped and applauded. Whenever McCoy or Palacios paused, often to wipe a tear or take a breath, women in the crowd spoke up to say, “You’ve got this” and “Take your time.” A few brought tissues to the podium.
Before the Fiery Hope chorus sang “This Little Light of Mine” and other tunes with a hopeful tone, attendees carried candles to the nearby greenspace for a moment of silence in honor of those who lost their lives to domestic violence.
“As someone who works at a [domestic violence] program, I’m always saying, ‘You’re not alone. We’re here for you,'” said Becky Lockwood, director of the Salasin Project, “but here’s the proof, here’s a community gathered.”
