Each attendee held a candle in memory of those who died from domestic violence in the past year.

TIFTON — Ruth’s Cottage and the Patticake House (RCPCH) held a candlelight vigil for victims of domestic abuse Oct. 1 at the Veterans Memorial Park downtown.

The event honored 96 individuals who lost their lives due to domestic abuse.

Jan Christiansen, executive director of the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence (GCADV) spoke at the vigil. The Coalition is important to organizations like RCPCH around the state because they provide support for communities in various ways such as free training and webinars, among other things.

Christiansen opened with a memory from when she was seven years old.

While playing at a friend’s house a neighborhood mother came running to the house. The mother was bruised and bloody. At the time, Christiansen recalled not understanding what was going on, but she remembers feeling scared and worried for the woman. Christiansen asked her mother what happened, and she learned that the woman’s husband was known to take his anger out on his wife regularly. Christiansen wondered why the woman didn’t take her children and leave the abusive husband, but it wasn’t until later she understood the complexity of the situation.

In the 1960s, when the story Christiansen told took place, women were more likely to not have anywhere to turn to when they were trapped in abusive marriages, she said. Catholic families like Christiansen’s were quick to pass judgment on divorce, and priests would recommend women stay in abusive marriages no matter what happened. The type of non-profit outreach like RCPCH or GCADV either didn’t exist or were hard to come by.

Christiansen studied social work in college. She interned at a domestic violence shelter and discovered a passion in pursuing non-profit work. She worked in shelters as various positions until working at GCADV 20 years later.

Christiansen referenced the statistic about how one in four women will become victims of domestic abuse. She took that further by saying GCADV recorded 162 deaths in 2017 from domestic abuse. That number is not only specific to victims that were killed. In some situations, the perpetrator will take the lives of children and their own life after killing their victim. The GCADV has seen four to five deaths sometimes due to one incident.

The mission of GCADV is to collaborate, educate, advocate, and empower.

“We are guided by the voice of survivors and we work to create social change by addressing the root causes to this violence,” said Christiansen.

GCADV provides training to organizations like RCPCH, law enforcement, judges, faith communities, work-places and more. They train child therapists on how to handle children who are victims of abuse. The Rapid Rehousing program helps survivors help sustain themselves on their own after leaving abusive relationships.

RCPCH recognized individuals with outstanding service to victims of domestic abuse. Melisa Wood is the Pattycake House Children’s Advocacy Center manager and she presented the 2018 Above and Beyond Award to Amanda Faircloth from the Tifton Police Department for working with the RCPCH. Recently, Faircloth supplied clothing to a child who fell victim to abuse and came to the shelter in need of help.

Briana Martinez, the senior legal advocate for Ruth’s Cottage, presented the 2018 Honorable J. Harvey Davis Award to Judge Herbert Benson. Ruth’s Cottage is recognizing Benson for working with victims of domestic abuse and recognizing that substance abuse increases the chance of domestic abuse. Between 40-60 percent of all domestic abuse cases involve substance abuse. Benson has implemented Tifton D.U.I. and Drug Court and is spearheading the development of Recovery Community Organization.

Maggie Martin, the director of student development at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College and chair to RCPCH Sexual Assault Program Committee presented the 2018 Third Door Award for the first time. The Third Door Award is named after the opening of the third door to include sexual assault victims to the list of victims the organization helps. The first recipient is Susie McKay for her tireless dedication to serving victims of domestic abuse as a nurse.

Holly Tyson, the Ruth’s Cottage shelter manager presented the 2018 RCPCH Service Award to Monique Haggins. Haggins has worked at the shelter for seven years and has continued to work hard at helping victims of domestic abuse.

A surprise service award was presented to Nancy Bryan who has worked towards implementing the third door outreach to sexual assault victims. Bryan also worked towards making Ruth’s Cottage financially stable since working at the organization for the past five years.

Towards the end of the ceremony a victim of domestic violence spoke about her experiences as a survivor.

Amber Carroll started her story with her 18th birthday party when she tried drinking alcohol for the first time. She woke up to her boyfriend stealing her virginity without her consent, she said. She dealt with the trauma by not talking about it through her twenties. After she had two kids with different fathers, she ended up homeless and out of money. A man that she met took her and her children in and took care of them. He provided her family with shelter, temporary happiness and safety. The friendship grew into a relationship, and that’s when things took a turn for the worse.

Carroll was restricted by her boyfriend, she said. He wouldn’t let her leave the house and demanded things to be cleaned before he came home. When Carroll became pregnant with her third child, she thought her spouse would stop abusing her physically, but she was wrong. The relationship continued and eventually she found help. After temporarily losing her children, Ruth’s Cottage legal advocates were able to help her get her children back.