News releases from the Mary Byron Foundation

For Immediate Release
June 10, 2005

Mary Byron Foundation honors agencies for innovative and exemplary domestic violence response

Agencies in Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, and Washington receive cash prize

Louisville, Ky. — Four groundbreaking programs that aim to stop domestic violence are being honored by the Mary Byron Foundation.
The Foundation’s Celebrating Solutions Awards recognize programs that demonstrate innovation and success in their efforts to fight domestic violence. Each winning agency receives a $10,000 cash award for its pioneering work. The 2005 winners are:

  • Family Violence and Rape Crisis Services (FRVC) — Pittsboro, NC
    FVRC was founded in 1982 to provide services to battered women and sexual assault victims in Chatham County. The agency’s Hispanic Outreach Project has served as a model for providing outreach to the Latino community and developing a coordinated response in a rural area. All aspects of the project are English-Spanish bilingual. An evaluation component has allowed FRVC to track results to determine and guide the effectiveness of its efforts.
  • Women in Construction Training Program (WiCC) — Duluth, MN
    Since May 2001 WiCC has been actively employing, training, and advocating for women who want to learn construction skills and enter jobs that pay living wages plus benefits. WiCC works primarily with women who are low-income and coming from battered women’s shelters, transitional housing programs, and homeless shelters. The goal of the project is to provide on-the-job training in construction skills, assist women with finding employment in construction, and build affordable housing with and for low-income women.
  • Women’s Law Initiative — Brooklyn, NY
    WomensLaw.org was founded in 2000 to provide easy-to-understand legal information and resources to women living with or escaping domestic violence. By reaching out through the Internet, WomenLaw.org empowers women and girls to lead independent and productive lives, free from abuse. The site publishes state-specific legal information for domestic violence and provides help via e-mail directly to women and advocates throughout the United States.
  • University of Washington Women’s Center — Seattle, WA
    Since its inception in 1978, the Women’s Center has strived to improve the lives of women through education, counseling, public policy influence, and life skills training. The Women’s Center leads research, activism and policy development around the issues of human trafficking and violence against women. As a result of the Center’s focused and solution-oriented coalition building, legislation making human trafficking a crime was introduced and passed in the state of Washington in 2002.


“The fact that our winners tackle such diverse issues under the umbrella of domestic violence — legal aid, minority outreach, job training, and human trafficking — demonstrates the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach in addressing the problem,” said Marcia Roth, executive director of the Mary Byron Foundation. “We feel that by honoring these programs, we’re helping to expose their success to a national audience and encourage other communities to follow their lead.”

In the third year of the Celebrating Solutions Awards program, the Mary Byron Foundation received nearly 300 nominations from 44 states and Washington, D.C. To date, programs in 10 states have received Celebrating Solutions Awards.

“There has been no shortage of worthy, high-quality nominations to choose from as we round out the third year of the program,” said Pat Byron, president of the Mary Byron Foundation. “Each year, we continue to encounter agencies that are meeting crucial needs and serving diverse populations in original, creative ways.”

The Celebrating Solutions Awards are open to non-profit or governmental programs that have been operating for a minimum of three years and can demonstrate innovation, positive outcomes, evidence of partnerships and community support, and potential for replication in other communities. The Mary Byron Foundation will begin accepting nominations for the 2006 Celebrating Solutions Award in July 2005. Details are available online at www.marybyronfoundation.org.


About the Mary Byron Foundation

The Mary Byron Foundation, a public grant-making charity based in Louisville, Kentucky, funds programs throughout the United States that are working to stop domestic violence.

The Foundation seeks innovative efforts that extend beyond crisis management to attack the root causes of this nationwide epidemic and prevent the violence from infecting the next generation.

Contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations make it possible for the Mary Byron Foundation to serve as a clearinghouse of proven, replicable solutions.

The Mary Byron Foundation is named in memory of a Louisville woman whose murder led to the creation of VINE?, the nation’s leading system of automated crime victim notification. Appriss?, Inc., the company that continues to provide this life-saving service, provided seed money to help establish the Mary Byron Foundation in 2000.

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