PAST EVENTS
“INTO THE LIGHT!” July 2025
121 Midcoast and Blue Hill Peninsula Businesses Donate $58,000 in Finding Our Voices Fundraising Festival.
Blue Hill Peninsula News Story Here
Midcoast News Story Here
Thank you to the huge hearts and awesome creativity of all who made this happen.
For the third year in a row in the Midcoast and the first year on the Peninsula, chefs and merchants provided yellow menu and retail items through the month of July and donated part or all of the proceeds to Finding Our Voices. All of the money raised in this event is paying for critical items for local women to escape domestic abuse, get on their feet, and bring stability to the lives of their children, including shelter, and car and legal expenses.
Cold Water Dip
For two years we have hosted a Cold Water Dip on Super Bowl Sunday, reportedly the day of the year when aggression on TV results in a spike of violence against women in the home. This day is also the Sunday before Valentine's Day, for a nod to what is and what is not love.
Dipping groups large and small (Sarah Havener gathered about 200 at Naskeag Beach in Brooklin in 2024) plan their own forays and also fundraising methods, with every penny from this community- and sisterhood-building fundraiser is going to bring warmth to Maine women domestic violence victims/survivors with critical (storage unit fees, utility bills, home security devices, shelter, car, legal costs.
Let’s Talk About It Tour
Our "Let's Talk About It Tour" launched with a Survivor-Speaks panel discussion at the Scarborough Library in October of 2023. Since then, a rotating roster of survivors of intimate partner abuse have shared our stories and led a community conversation about domestic abuse in more than 50 towns, including a tour of remote islands with the Seacoast Mission, the Maine Irish Heritage Center in Portland and a panel of men sharing their experiences of abusive fathers that broke attendance records at the Camden Public Library.
Blue Hill Public Library
Botanical Gardens in Boothbay
Eastport
Visit our YouTube channel to view more videos.
Actor Gabriel Byrne Lifts Voice for Finding Our Voices to Tune of $20,000.00!
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Gabriel’s ode to Finding Our Voices in comments to the audience at his sold-out event for us on March 9.
“The work that Patrisha does here and her personal journey towards finding her own voice is absolutely inspirational. She went from a position of being powerless in silence and shame like every person who has ever experienced this awful form of abuse and she turned it into something that is by day by the day spreading all over Maine.
There's a sense of collective pride in being part of something that truly helps in a really visceral, real way for people who are suffering amongst us. And the bravery, the courage that it takes to lift that phone and ask for help is enormous. To lift that phone is the greatest act of courage people in that awful situation can do, but lives are changed by that moment.
And we all here tonight, every single one of us, every dollar has contributed to that and I would just love to say that you know Patrisha said to me that it's nice of me to be here –- it's an honor for me to be asked to be here and I'm really proud of the work that she's doing and that this little part of the world is open to that, and that it will go out from Maine across America, because the model that she's using is a universal model. And this particular illness in society is worldwide, it's everywhere, and it's up to people like us to try to change it in however small a way that we need possibly can.”