Reunion Online

What can the Wizard of Oz tell you about how to manage your recovery? A lot!

Since we’ve relaunched ENDTHEBACKLOG.org, news has been pouring in about the rape kit backlog across the country. Journalists are uncovering backlogs, jurisdictions are implementing reforms to track and test rape kits and citizens are taking action.

As we close out on 2013, I am enormously proud of the organization’s many accomplishments over the past 12 months and I look forward to the next!

As 2013 comes to a close, we are so grateful for all that we have accomplished because of your generosity. And as we look to the new year, we know that we can only make the most of these moments with your support. Thank you for being a part of our joyful community.

This is the moment. The moment to unite and declare NO MORE. NO MORE fear or ignorance of the issues. NO MORE blaming survivors. NO MORE standing by and doing nothing. NO MORE silence. NO MORE violence. NO MORE excuses.

Just a few short weeks ago, Memphis revealed its astounding backlog of 12,000 untested rape kits. And Memphis is just the latest in a long list of cities uncovering rape kit backlogs—first New York and Los Angeles, then Detroit and Houston, now Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Mobile, Phoenix and San Antonio. This is the moment to ENDTHEBACKLOG.

How can any of us ever forget the images of trauma and pain that the media carried to us from Newtown, Connecticut last holiday season? We coped and mourned, wondered how a person survives this type of loss. We struggled to understand. We held our children ever-closer. For some, we felt a mix of gratitude to be safely with our families and stinging guilt that we were okay when others were is such deep, abiding pain.

Joyful Heart’s Heal the Healers program was a wake up call for me. The program offered education about vicarious trauma and self-care practices, but most importantly, Heal the Healers gave me the space to realize that our minds and bodies can only take so much. The wake up call has lasted.

As we pause to share our gratitude at this time of Thanksgiving, we want to thank you for supporting our work. Today, with our deepest and heartfelt gratitude, we are proud to share our report on the Joyful Heart Foundation’s 2012 – 2013 accomplishments.

1,400 views in 3 days. I don’t think that, that number—despite the embarrassing number of times I have refreshed my Vimeo page—has sunk in yet.