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2024 Harvesting Hope Gala Fundraiser

This is a paragraph. Use this area to add any information you want to share w ​ ​ DOVE's HOLIDAY ASSISTANC E PROGRAM HELP SUPPORT FAMILIES AFFECTED BY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE Adopt a family Host a donation drive Donate gift cards Donate items for the shelter ​ SIGN UP TO DONATE HERE by December 9 Questions ​ ​ THANK YOU! To our guests, donors, and auction winners, thank you for your generous donations! ​​ See event photos HERE ​ ​ ​ ​ ​​​ Domestic Violence Ended Mission Hope, healing, safety, social change. Working together to end domestic and partner violence. ​ DOVE is here. Our advocates work tirelessly to provide safe, calm, and caring support. All services are free and confidential. GET SUPPORT GIVE TODAY SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER DOVE to Transform Group Shelter Life to Independent Apartment Living Launches new Housing & Economic Empowerment Program to aide dozens more seeking safe housing DOVE Awarded $150,000 Cummings Grant Quincy nonprofit receives 3 years of funding from Cummings Foundation DOVE Annual Report For fiscal year ending June 30, 2023 2,479 Clients Served Through our Community-Based Advocacy Services, Children's Clinical Services, Civilian Domestic Violence Advocacy Services, Legal Advocacy Services, Quincy/Dedham District Court Outreach Services, and 24-Hour Hotline Calls 16 Adults / 13 Children 365 Days/Year Sheltered Our Emergency Shelter supports program participants to ground themselves after crisis or a period of homelessness. DOVE Support Staff helped to ensure the safety of program participants 365 days/year 24/7, while Advocates assisted participants to seek transitional and/or permanent housing and economic stability beyond shelter 4,892 Community Members Engaged Through Outreach Presentations and Trainings, YouthSpeak Presentations on Dating Abuse, and YouthSpeak Peer Educators in High School Programs Get Support : DOVE's Programs and Services 24-Hour Hotline : 617.471.1234 Community Advocacy and Counseling : 617.770.4065 ext. 300 Legal Advocacy : 617. 770.4065 ext. 400 SafeLink (MA Statewide Hotline) : 877.785.2020 Email : info@dovema.org Subscribe to DOVE's Newsletter Sign me up! I’d like to receive news and updates. First name Last name Email Submit Follow Us On Social Media! DOVE Affirms Black Lives Matter , Stands Against Anti-Asian Violence , & Advocates For Reproductive Justice

HOLIDAY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM We need your help to fulfill holiday wishlists for families served through DOVE’s Emergency Shelter and Community Services programs. We invite you to help us brighten a family’s holiday! HOW IT WORKS ​ To participate, email: dove.elfteam@gmail.com . ​ DOVE will provide a list of options where donors can choose to support a specific family, donate general goods to our shelter or, help support our much needed general gift card drive to support our families through the holidays and beyond. Donors who choose to support a specific family will receive their family’s Holiday Wish List by no later than Friday, December 1st. ​ To ensure that each of our more than 150 families receive their gifts before the holidays, we ask that donors schedule a time to drop off by Wednesday December 13th. Become a Holiday Donor! More Information about DOVE's Holiday Assistance Program Thank you for your interest in DOVE’s Holiday Assistance Program! Each holiday season, DOVE’s Holiday Donation Drop-Off location transforms into an amazing workshop of toys and goodies. The generosity of our community brings together gifts, personal care items, clothing, and so much more to fulfill the wish lists of the individuals and families we serve. ​ Individuals, families, community groups, and corporate teams can join together and ‘adopt a family’ for the holidays. Participating community members are able to bring great joy to what can be a difficult time for domestic violence survivors, uprooted and struggling to build self-sufficient, thriving lives. Become a Holiday Donor DOVE’s Holiday Assistance Program assists families during the holiday season, who may be living in our emergency shelter, transitioning out of shelter into their own housing for the holidays, or who are struggling to make ends meet while building a stable, violence-free life. ​ How does it work? Donate Goods / Provide for a Family: Contact DOVE to donate to one of the families we serve in our Emergency Shelter or Community-based Services Program. Donors are given a specific family’s wish list. Families can be as small as a single individual and as large as a parent and 6 children. Donors should plan to spend roughly $100 per family member. Wrap and deliver: Purchase wrapping supplies and bring them along with your gifts (please do not pre-wrap). ​ Help make someone’s holiday warmer and brighter! Interested? Please contact: dove.elfteam@gmail.com

LGBTQ+ communities tend to be small. If someone feels safe and accepted as their most authentic self with only a few people, their world tends to be even smaller. LGBTQ+ survivors may only have a small circle of chosen family, which includes their partner, and may shrink even further due to the isolation typical of abusive dynamics. Thus, these survivors may share their entire support system with their abusive partner. Due to a limited number of LGBTQ+ services and spaces, the only spaces they may be out in – and therefore could talk about their relationship in – could be those their partner frequents. So, who will an LGBTQ+ survivor tell if they experience abuse? Fear of being refused services based on gender or sexual identity is a powerful barrier to seeking support. Will they be believed? Does the person they are talking to recognize the intricacies of abuse in the LGBTQ+ community? Even if they are believed and provided services, these survivors don’t know if support will be accompanied by behaviors or comments that, regardless of intention, are painful. Will staff understand their identities? To reach outside of one’s tiny community for support also necessitates recognition of one’s experience as abuse. Messaging that abuse is primarily experienced by women in heterosexual relationships is powerful in our society, and an LGBTQ+ survivor may not identify what they’re experiencing as abuse. The tiny world of an LGBTQ+ survivor could be broadened at each level by societal shifts away from homophobia and transphobia. Our work as community members is not just interpersonal. We must do our part in combatting the oppression LGBTQ+ individuals experience to make it more accessible to reach out for support and build healthier relationships free of shame, secrecy, and fear. DOVE serves survivors of all genders and sexualities. Reach out for support if you need it.

As October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I wanted to share some insight into the ongoing problem of domestic violence, especially during these unprecedented times. As someone who has experienced it myself, I know that there are so many fears and emotions that keep victims and survivors stuck; self-blame, guilt, and shame can stop us from reaching out. I am the mother of four young adults right now but during my divorce, they were four school-aged children. My ex-husband was in the law enforcement field and so, I hid the abuse for a very long time. The good news is that there are programs out there that can help survivors of domestic violence and their children. If you are a survivor, I hope you are reading this now: you are loved, you are cared for. If it is safe to do so, please find a way to make a phone call to your local domestic violence agency or to someone you trust for support. As for myself, I still struggle sometimes. I have lost a lot of friends along the way after my divorce and know how devastating the isolation can be. I gain strength, however, from a domestic violence support group at DOVE once a week and my other spiritual and social support systems. Now, I hope to share my story to make sure others don’t ever have to feel alone again. So please find somebody that you trust, make that call to your local domestic violence agency, start planning for your safety and wellbeing. You deserve to live a life free of abuse! Please stay healthy and safe! Lisa

A Joint Letter From Programs Serving Sexual and Domestic Violence Survivors Dear Speaker DeLeo, Senate President Spilka, and Policing Reform Conference Committee Members: We, the undersigned community-based sexual and domestic violence service providers, urge you to take immediate action to pass a policing reform bill that incorporates the many provisions of S.2820/H.4886 designed to increase police accountability and reduce harm in communities most impacted by police violence. Those who oppose police reform often cite the needs of victims of domestic violence and sexual assault as reasons not to place reasonable limits on police authority to use force. This argument presumes that the greatest risk to victims is the person who caused them immediate harm, and the greatest means of protection is to call the police. However, the reality for many victims and survivors is that both police action and inaction can sometimes add more harm, and these harms are disproportionately experienced by people and communities of color, immigrants, poor people, those struggling with addiction and mental illness, and so many more. As organizations who work to end sexual and domestic violence, we want you to hear directly from us that harm reduction in policing practices is essential to ensuring that law enforcement officers and the system as a whole will be more effective and more accountable to the communities they serve. Survivors repeatedly tell us that they do not want their abuser hurt, and certainly not killed, when they call for help; they want the harm to stop, to feel safe in their own homes, and for those who caused them harm to be held accountable in meaningful ways. Victims should also not have to worry that they or their children might be hurt by the very people they are calling for help. We ask that you declare that Black lives in the Commonwealth matter by supporting efforts that will reduce the harm of police-inflicted violence on our communities. Omnibus Policing Reform Priorities We see the provisions of S.2820/H.4886 as one step towards reducing the harm of structural violence in Massachusetts. In particular, the following provisions must be included in an Omnibus Policing Reform bill to improve the safety and justice for all people in the Commonwealth. 1. Ban the most violent of police tactics. We urge the Conference Committee to include strong use of force standards including a complete ban on the most violent of police tactics—chokeholds, no-knock warrants and tear gas and other chemical weapons. These violent and harmful police tactics need to be prohibited to ensure the safety of all persons who encounter a police officer. We have witnessed time and again the use of chokeholds by police officers against Black men that ultimately lead to death. This practice cannot continue. We have also seen the dangers of no-knock warrants which are disproportionately used when Black and Brown people are the suspects. Lastly, tear gas and other chemical weapons have been shown to cause serious hormonal disruption, bodily injury and even death. The Commonwealth must not allow these dangerous practices that disproportionately target and harm Black people to continue. 2. Strict limits on qualified immunity. It is imperative the Conference Committee answer the calls of the people to impose strict limits on qualified immunity to ensure that police can be held accountable when they violate people’s rights. Banning violent police tactics is meaningless if there is no way for people to hold the police accountable if they break the rules. 3. Ban on the use of facial recognition technology. Face surveillance technologies have serious racial bias flaws built into their systems. Based on research, we know this technology is extremely poor at accurately recognizing the faces of women and people of color, misclassifying darker-skinned females at an extremely higher rate than lighter-skinned males. These dangerous failings of facial recognition technology serve to supercharge racist policing. Furthermore, all survivors of sexual and domestic violence, and particularly Black survivors, should not have to worry that calling the police will result in them being wrongfully identified as a criminal or having their activity monitored. 4. Prevent sexual assault in police custody. Included as an amendment to H.4886, this provision closes a statutory loophole by prohibiting law enforcement officers from engaging in sexual conduct with persons in their custody. There is no clear ability to determine consent when power dynamics are so significant that one party has the power and ability to control another’s personal liberty. Law enforcement officers should not be able to use their role to subject a person in their custody to any unwanted sexual contact of any kind. 5. Create an Independent Oversight System with Strong Accountability Measures: Massachusetts is one of only a few states without a POST system. Any oversight body should have strong civilian representation and evidentiary standards that enable rather than deny justice. We urge the Committee to establish a POST system that is truly independent and includes strong representation from members of the public who have personal and/or professional experience with respect to the impact of structural racism on communities of color. 6. Justice Reinvestment and Opportunity in Communities Affected by Incarceration : Reducing the harm of police-inflicted violence on communities also requires investing in communities most impacted by crimes and the successes of criminal justice reform. We support investing in the Justice Reinvestment Workforce Development Fund to support communities heavily impacted by crime and the criminal justice system. Using savings from reductions in incarceration to strengthen communities & prevent crime through programs like workforce development, social enterprise & small business development, dropout prevention programs, and transitional employment improve the lives of survivors of sexual and domestic violence and their communities. 7. Commission on Structural Racism: Unfortunately, our declarations of injustice and critiques of structural racism often fall on unsympathetic ears in the absence of empirical data. Despite the numerous reports that look at racial disparities, there has not been a commission that will take a comprehensive look at the policies and practices that lead to racially disparate outcomes. In order to hone in on the policies and practices that lead these disparate outcomes we trust that you will include in the final version of the bill a commission on structural racism. This is our opportunity as a Commonwealth to invest in our communities to build a more equitable and just Commonwealth that explicitly values Black Lives, and which in doing so will also improve the ability of law enforcement to more effectively and ultimately more safely respond to domestic and sexual violence. Signed, Sue Chandler DOVE Executive Director