E-Quality Matters

Help Save Domestic Violence Services

When I moved to Maine, I was amazed that 50% of all homicides are related to domestic violence. If you're reading the paper, you'll know that this year was a particularly devastating year with increased violence and increased deaths.

Sadly, despite this influx, the services that help women remove themselves and their families from violent situations is in jeopardy. This in from our friends at Maine Coalition to end Domestic Violence, detailing ways you can help save these critical services. It's urgent that we take action immediately.

Call the toll free helpline: 1-866-834-HELP

Preserve Funding which supports of Victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence!

Thank you to everyone who has responded in opposition to the proposed cuts to services for victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence; unfortunately these services are still in jeopardy! Proposed State and Federal cuts to Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault services continue to be under threat! Wednesday, March 5th’s announcement of the change package by Governor Baldacci continues to threaten services across the state. Instead of salvaging victim and family services; the package drastically cuts funding to victim services.

With your help, we can send a strong message to the Maine State House that the proposed funding cuts to Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault services is NOT acceptable. We look to you, the citizens of Maine, to send a clear message to Maine’s elected officials stating that these essential services must be saved!

State and federal funding have made it possible to save countless lives by providing safety planning and support services for victims. The number of individuals served grows as people in our community who have experienced domestic violence reach out to their local domestic violence programs for support and safety services.

Yet, funding cuts in the FY08 state and federal budgets have already hampered the ability of domestic violence programs to respond to victims, and the Governor’s Supplemental Budget, coupled with President Bush’s FY09 Budget, propose funding cuts that could sound the death knell for these vital services throughout Maine. With nowhere to turn, families will continue to live in chronic danger and costly crimes will continue to occur.

It is hard to say how many more murders would have occurred in Maine but for the emergency services offered by domestic violence programs. However, we do know that for the first time in 30 years there will be no other place in Maine for abused women and their children to turn if these programs are forced to close.

Take Action:

Please send a message to your elected officials that these vital, life or death services Must be Saved!

Desktop Activism:

Please call your local delegation to tell them you don’t support these cuts and ask that they restore Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault funding. Your message to legislators asking them, on behalf of victims of domestic violence and their children, to support the full restoration of the proposed cuts to domestic violence victim services programs in the Governor’s Supplemental Budget, will tell our elected officials that Maine citizens will not stand idly by and allow these cuts to happen.

- It’s easy to find your House and Senate Representative; follow this link: http://janus.state.me.us/house/townlist.htm to search by your town. To then call and leave a message for a member of the House call 800-423-2900 or 287-1400; and to leave a message for a member of the Senate call 800-423-6900 or 287-1540.

- Also consider sending your delegation an email, again follow the link: http://janus.state.me.us/house/townlist.htm to access their email addresses.

- If you have not yet signed the Maine Can Do Better petition, please do so by navigating to: www.MaineCanDoBetter.org/takeaction.html

Take a Stand in Person: We need your presence at the State House!

Join us for a rally at the State House Hall of Flags, Wednesday, March12th, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. to bring a united message to Governor Baldacci and the Legislature that these essential funds can not be cut. We will have posters to carry and stickers for everyone to wear. Throughout the day the joint standing committees of Appropriations & Financial Affairs and Health & Human Services will be hearing testimony from organizations and individuals opposing the proposed budget cuts.

Carpooling and possibly busses to the State House will be available to shuttle folks from designated areas across the state to Augusta and back. If you would like a ride, contact your local Domestic Violence Project or notify Gretchen at: gretchen@mcedv.org for ride information!

Please also send this request on to friends, family members, co-workers, and clubs asking that they too reach out to our legislature – Thanks!

With this concerted citizen action, domestic violence programs throughout Maine will continue to help victims and their children find safety and security and build self-sufficient, violence-free lives - their universal and fundamental human right.

For more information about Domestic Violence services in Maine, to learn how else to get involved, or for any additional talking points, please call Gretchen at 941.1194, ext. 15 or email at: gretchen@mcedv.org.

For more information about Sexual Assault services in Maine, to learn how else to get involved, or for any additional talking points, please call Elizabeth Ward Saxl at 626-0034 or email at: info@mecasa.org.

Log on to www.mcedv.org to reach your local domestic violence program and to www.mecasa.org to reach your local sexual assault center.

Our mission is to create and encourage a social, political, and economic environment in which domestic violence no longer exists, and to ensure that battered women are supported and that batterers are held accountable. MCEDV mobilizes and coordinates community action through a statewide network of domestic violence projects. Through these partnerships, we focus our resources on public policy, education, and systems advocacy.
If you no longer would like to receive these emails, unsubscribe by clicking the following link: http://soap.siteturbine.com/contacts/subscriptions/index.php?action=unsubscribe&email=elizabeth@mainewomensfund.org&topic=31

Cardiovascular Health Important for Women

Because heart disease is the number one killer of women in Maine, the Maine Women's Fund is proud to support an event that is raising awareness about the disease and encouraging women to step up their physical activity. It's the 7th annual Women's Ride for Heart Health, on Sunday, June 1 at 9am in Freeport.  This women-only event is sponsored by The Bicycle Coalition of Maine (BCM) and is sponsored by us and L.L. Bean (as well as many other great groups.) 

This event includes a 6, 10 and 25-mile ride choice with offerings of free medical screenings, yoga/meditation by Turning Light Yoga of Yarmouth, and mini massage therapy sessions.  The American Lung Association of Maine and Access Health, a Healthy Maine Partnerships are among the exhibitors on hand to share heart health related information.
 
To reduce your risk of heart disease, become more active, eat healthy, reduce your stress, and if you’re thinking of quitting smoking, now is the time!  Remember again the primary goal of this event is to motivate women and encourage family and friends to step up their physical activity and see the beauty of bicycling and good nutrition as a means to combat heart disease- the number one killer of women in Maine!  So bring your daughter, aunt, cousin, or friend and join us June 1st for a pampering morning and fun bicycle event.

Email info@BikeMaine.org, or call BCM at 623-4511 for more information. You may pre-register via the website at www.BikeMaine.org.  On-site registrations will start at 8am with the event kicking off at 9am.

Hope to see you there!

Everyone gets sick; not everyone can get well.

"Everyone gets sick. Not everyone can get well." Great message from Sarah Standiford yesterday as she led a gestalt in Augusta to make paid sick leave mandatory across the state. For those of you not familiar with Sarah, she's the kick-butt leader of the Maine Women's Policy Center -- www.mainewomen.com, advocating for women's issues across Maine.

The lack of paid sick leave is both a health issue and an economic issue.

Thousands of workers in Maine lack the basic protection of a paid sick day. For low-income working parents without sick days, a child's ear infection of case of the flu can mean no money for rent or food on the table...or even losing a job. A full 86% of people working in the food and public accomodation industry have NO sick days, so are forced to come to work sick - or risk pay or even penalties at work. The bottom line is that Maine workers should have the right to recover from illness without endangering public health. And children deserve the protection of parents who can take time to care for them when they're sick.

"The inability to take even one paid sick day is a huge liability for public health, for workers, and for businesses," said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director of MomsRising.Org, a national grassroots organization building support for a family-friendly America. “When employees have to go to work sick they risk spreading their illness to their co-workers and their customers—as well as getting sicker themselves and ultimately having to take more time off. Do you really want someone with the flu working in the kitchen of your favorite restaurant? It's not fair to you, and it's not fair to the worker. The Act to Care for Working Families will help to ensure that Maine workers aren't forced to choose between going to work sick or losing a day's pay...and possibly a job.”

The Maine Women's Fund (www.mainewomensfund.org) believes that the lack of paid sick leave is a threat to women's economic security, given their role as family care providers and will use its new Economic Security Initiative to support family-friendly practices across the state, helping moms be economically productive without jeopardizing their health or the health of their families.

Cross posted from RaisingMaine.

To all you social activists...

I didn't realize how special a day devoted to a social activist was until I read this post by my friend Donna. MLK Day is one of only two national holidays in the world that honors a social leader, and there was quite a bit controversy that went into establishing it.

Donna also included a link to this Seattle Times article, first published a year before our national holiday began: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/special/mlk/perspectives/holiday/.

Good history and good for the activist soul.

Spiritual Reflection on Roe V. Wade

I want to point out the thoughtful spiritual reflection on Roe V. Wade in this morning's Portland Press Herald.

"Currently, our state has a lot to be proud about in regard to abortion services," writes Elsa Peters, a religious leader in the United Church of Christ and a member of the 2007-2008 class of New Girls.

"I worry that the women that grace my office to ask difficult questions might face greater turmoil... this is a difficult decision. No matter what decision a woman makes, it will be a challenge filled with consequences and questions. My hope is that in all of this 35th anniversary year of the Roe v. Wade decision, these questions are not halted by legislation in my state or another."

Read the full article here: http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=163983&ac=PHedi

Hillary wins in NH, and Gloria weighs in...

Shannon found this oped by Gloria Steinhem in the New York Times. In it, she questions why women are not the front runners in political races. Being on maternity leave, I'm spending every nursing hour watching CNN, and there is a lot here that I agree with her about.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/opinion/08steinem.html?ex=1200459600&en=b89398531bea1916&ei=5070&emc=eta1

What do others think? Are younger women trying to escape the sexual caste system? Are female voters disloyal if they don't vote for her and biased if they do?

A Message to our Grantees

At the 2007 Evening to Honor Maine Women and Girls, we, the Maine Women’s Fund, launched our Economic Security Initiative – a new strategic program that will be the focus of our grantmaking and technical assistance for the next year or two.

 We wanted to take the opportunity to describe this focus to our current, past, and future grantees (i.e. the community of nonprofits serving women and girls) in greater detail, and in doing so, opening a channel for questions and general dialogue.

Historically, the Maine Women’s Fund has invested in four distinct issue areas – economic empowerment, freedom from violence, access to high quality affordable health care, and self determination. The benefit of this strategy is that it allowed us to strengthen a nascent sector of organizations serving women and girls by touching, even in small ways, a large number of organizations. Since 1980, we’ve invested over $1.4 million in 250 organizations.

The cost of this strategy is that our investments have not necessarily reinforced each other and that our investments are not big enough to serve the critical needs of women and girls, and the organizations serving them.

The strategic planning process we undertook sought to identify how to build a stronger grantmaking program that would better serve the sector. We undertook conversations with grantees and other nonprofits, donors, and women leaders. We collected research and data and conducted focus groups.

This led us to a new integrated strategy, whereby we would address the same issues by addressing a root problem of those issues, simultaneously enabling and encouraging reinforcing activities. It was the broader community of women’s organizations that identified economic security, as the root issue that threads through their work – either accelerating it or inhibiting, no matter their subject area. Economic security is by no means the only root issue – but it is the one most articulated by the community and from a strategic focus, it’s an area with proven solutions for dismantling the problem. In the next few years, we intend to have multiple initiatives like the Economic Security Initiative addressing additional root problems in an integrated way, while providing substantially more, and new, resources to your organizations. It is our hope that these new initiatives will always come from you, the community we serve, and that you will engage us in conversation as ideas come to you.

 In addition to using economic security as the lens through which we address multiple issues facing women and girls, we also intend to use economic security to address a core need of most nonprofit organizations – their own financial security. It is a core objective of the initiative to bring substantially new resources to the sector, as well as invest in resource mobilization strategies and tools for the sector through technical assistance.

Finally, it is also our goal to be a communication platform for issues facing women and girls, and to bring new resources to bear through this platform. Our goal is to engage more women across the state in women’s issues, and we are holding regional and state-wide public education events to make this happen. We’d love to co-sponsor events with you, or to distribute your messages to our broader community as part of our collaborative commitment.

Both our grantmaking and technical assistance will begin in March 2008, with a series of meetings designed to bring together nonprofits serving women and girls. We hope that these meetings will build collaborations, share best practices, set specific goals, and define technical assistance needs. Following these meetings, we will issue a Request for Proposals, using April and May to review proposals and define grantmaking priorities. We will issue the first round of grants in June 2008.

Our goal is to triple our grantmaking over the next two years, offering over $600,000 in grant dollars. This is a stretch goal for us, making the July – March timeframe so important.

While we gear up, please send your ideas and thoughts about the initiative directly to me at Elizabeth@mainewomensfund.org. As many of you know, I’ll be taking some time off (in the near future) to have a baby. I’ll be back in action before not to long will respond to you then. Additionally, if you have ideas for using our communications platform, please contact our community outreach coordinator,

Brianna McCabe

.

We look forward to what the New Year has to offer and we wish you all the very best.

With warm regards, Eli

Help Trina and Simply Divine Brownies win $100,000!!!

For those of you following Simply Divine Brownies' trek up the Forbes.com $100,000 Boost Your Business Award, we have awesome news! Trina and her company are among the top five finalists! With the $100,000 grand prize, they will be able to launch their frozen product line -- which according to them means: "Simply Divine Brownies baked from scratch with the same love, laughter, and fine confections in the warmth of your ovens at home."

To vote, click on the link to Simply Divine Brownies and follow the instructions on their Web site.

Trina, founder and CEO of Simply Divine Brownies, was a key note speaker at our Portland Women Standing Together breakfast in April. Since then, we've seen her grow her company by leaps and bounds, featuring them here and here. The Maine Women's Fund is very very proud to have a women owned, made-in-Maine business winning a Forbes contest.

An Update and Thank You from the Evening to Honor Maine Women and Girls.

Thank you to everyone who took part in the 2007 Evening to Honor Maine Women & Girls.  It was a joy to celebrate women’s accomplishments, power and contributions with you! 

Special thanks to our sponsors who made it possible for us to highlight women who are making a difference in Maine -- role models like Linda Greenlaw, a successful fisherman and author; Sarah Standiford, Executive Director of the Maine Women’s Policy Centerand Maine Women’s Lobby; and Thalia Matthews and Deahna Giguere, two young women challenging corporations to be responsible for the products they sell to children. 

At the event, we also unveiled our new community promise, and our new Economic Security Intiative. We hope that you are as excited about them as we are. They bring with them a new era of increased grantmaking, bold actions and statewide impact.  The Economic Security Initiative is our sole initiative for 2007 and 2008. We are currently scheduling meetings throughout the state, for people and nonprofits who want to learn more.  Check the events section of our new website to find a meeting near you.

The 600 or so people attending the event responded generously when we asked them to exercise their “Power of the Purse” (or wallet) and make a gift to the Economic Security Initiative. We are pleased to report that we raised $30,000 that evening, bringing us to $180,000 within the Economic Security Initiative campaign!  Our two-year goal for the Economic Security Initiative is $700,000.  We’ll keep you posted on this campaign and its impact in helping women and their families have more financial security!  Many thanks to those of you supported this important initiative and participated in our annual awards and fundraising dinner.

Inspiration from Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence

I found this morning to be a depressing newsaper morning -- meaning, a few too many articles detailing violence against women: A local man has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend and the mother of his children. The UN is warning of the impacts of female infantcide in a few Asian countries and is seeing evidence that its really happening.

Then I saw an email from Nickie Blanchard at the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence with a few results from last month's Violence Prevention campaign:

A BIG thank you to everyone who worked to raise awareness during October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month!!!

• More than 150 people gathered in Portland to attend a conference about domestic violence and faith issues.
• More than 700 books about domestic violence were distributed to libraries across the state.
• During Tails Are Not for Pulling readings, children across the state learned that it is important to love their animals.
• More than 50 local events took place to raise awareness and funds for local domestic violence projects.
• Individuals were honored for their contributions to end domestic violence.
• We are also thrilled to announce the launch of a series of public service announcements funded by the Project Safe Neighborhoods task force. These powerful PSA's offer a simple message. If you suspect domestic violence, be a bridge and call 1-866-834-HELP to find out about resources.

Good stuff. She also include a link to an interview with Celine about her song: "This Time" which is worth a check out.