GREENFIELD — With a new name, the Greenfield-based organization previously known as the New England Learning Center for Women in Transition, or NELCWIT, hopes to be more inclusive of all people who experience domestic or sexual violence.

“In honor of every person who has experienced domestic and sexual violence, and in acknowledging that any person can experience domestic and sexual violence, we’ll be changing our name to be more inclusive of those realities,” Executive Director Amanda Sanderson said, announcing the change during the organization’s 16th annual “Power to Persevere” fundraiser in May. “Our hope is that fewer people will be deterred from our services, and that everyone who is known and loved in NELCWIT will support us in this transformation.”

The new name will be the Resilience Center of Franklin County. Sanderson said the name change, which comes as the organization marks 50 years of providing sexual and domestic violence crisis services for Franklin County and the North Quabbin residents, will happen over the course of months to allow time for people to get used to the change.

Adorning the Terrazza Ristorante dining room, where the annual fundraiser was held, was the Clothesline Project, honoring nearly a dozen women from Franklin County who lost their lives due to domestic violence. Family members contributed shirts in memory of the deceased.

The event’s keynote speaker, the Rev. Dr. Andrea Ayvazian, spoke to the Resilience Center of Franklin County’s crucial role in the community. Ayvazian, who is founder and director of the Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership and an anti-racism educator since 1985, said the center has “persevered with power and vision, love and care, strength and tenderness, for five decades.”

In her speech, Ayvazian also pointed to the power of unity and togetherness as the main resource to navigate the country’s tumultuous political landscape. She compared the power of community to that of Armenian lace, a lace made using only a needle and thread, held together by dozens of tiny knots.

“Friends, we are the thread. We are certainly strong. We can mend things and we can hold things together,” she said. “Individually, each one of us as a single thread is vulnerable and we can be fragile and we can break. But knotted together, tied together, connected together, we are strong and mighty.”

Scott Smith, a member of the Mayor’s Task Force Against Domestic Violence and former teacher, participated in the event’s “Honoring Survivors” segment by speaking about his experience growing up in a violent household and participating in a short question-and-answer session.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but I look back on the resilience and I think it’s a great term for the organization,” Smith said. “Children are more resilient than we will ever know.”

For more information about the Resilience Center of Franklin County, visit nelcwit.org.