Finding Our Voices brings welcome noise to Peninsula in domestic violence awareness month

Originally published by Penobscot Bay Press
October 23, 2025

Survivors of domestic abuse sharing their stories and leading a community conversation at Chase Memorial Public Library on October 15, from left to right, Courtney Davis who grew up with an abusive father on Deer Isle, Mary Lou Smith who drove from Scarborough to share her story, Patrisha McLean the nonprofit’s CEO and founder, and Amy Thomas from Rockport who at this event spoke publicly for the first time about the psychological terrorizing she endured inside her home, including how with three science degrees she could not figure out that it was domestic abuse. COURTESY OF FINDING OUR VOICES

BLUE HILL, BROOKLIN, and DEER ISLE—Survivors along with the grassroots nonprofit, Finding Our Voices, led community conversations around the Peninsula.

Courtney Davis shared with attendees at the event at the Deer Isle Public Library last week what that community did and did not do to support her when she was a child growing up with a violent father in Deer Isle.

Davis, who now works as a hairdresser in Rockport, was one of five survivors with the grassroots nonprofit coming from as far away as Scarborough to break the silence of domestic abuse across the Blue Hill Peninsula last week on October 15 and 16, described in a press release.

Survivor-led conversations were held at the Chase Memorial Public Library, Friend Memorial Public Library, and also at the Blue Hill Co-op where Finding

Our Voices talked to shoppers from a table in the entryway.

Finding Our Voices CEO and Founder, Patrisha McLean, who had a house in Castine for decades, explained how the group is filling in the gaps for services and programs for the far-too-many domestic violence victims in Hancock County, including collaborating with referral partners locally and across the state. Kelly Brown, the director of Next Step Domestic Violence Project, at the Deer Isle event, let attendees know about the many services her own group provides to domestic abuse victims/ survivors.

Finding Our Voices talked about domestic abuse with customers of the Blue Hill Co-op across two days at a table in the entryway. From left: Jennifer Coolidge, Ownership and Events Coordinator of the Co-op, Patrisha McLean, the nonprofit’s founder and CEO, and Mary Lou Smith, retired first-grade teacher who drove from Scarborough to the Peninsula to bring light and understanding around domestic abuse to the general public as well as to local sister-survivors. COURTESY PATRISHA MCLEAN

Mary Lou Smith, an 85-year-old retired first-grade teacher, drove from her home in Scarborough to bring hope and understanding around domestic abuse to Peninsula residents. She started and ended the library events with her poems. “It” was written two months before she escaped 45 years of physical abuse and psychological terrorizing by her college professor husband, and “Tranquility” was written on the 20th anniversary of that escape. Mary Lou said that she was “humbled and thrilled” about a compliment about her poetry by an attendee of the Deer Isle event, Stuart Kestenbaum, upon finding out he was Maine’s poet laureate for five years.

Survivors sharing their stories and leading a conversation about domestic abuse at Friend Memorial Library in Brooklin on October 16, from left: Mary Lou Smith; Christine Buckley; Sadie Cooley, library assistant director, and Patrisha McLean, CEO and Founder of Finding Our Voices. Sadie is holding up the Finding Our Voices bookmarks featuring the faces and voices of 45 Maine survivors; the panelists are holding up the bookmark that features themselves. PHOTO BY MICHAEL PERCY

Finding Our Voices is the grassroots nonprofit breaking the silence of domestic abuse across Maine and providing meaningful resources for women survivors of domestic abuse and their children, including Get Out Stay Out funding, online support groups, and access to free dental care