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In observance of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the unveiling of the 2006 collection of the Silent Witness Project’s northwest
Ohio chapter will be held Wednesday (Oct. 4), the Women's Center has announced. The 6:30 p.m. event will take place at St.
Mark's Lutheran Church, 315 S. College Drive.
The Silent Witness Project was founded in 1991 in Minneapolis, in response to an epidemic of domestic violence murders in
the community. Since then, local chapters have been founded in all 50 states. The BGSU Women's Center founded the northwest
Ohio chapter in 2001.
The 2006 collection includes 40 freestanding, life-sized red wooden silhouettes, each bearing the name and story of a northwest
Ohio girl or woman whose life ended violently at the hands of a husband, ex-husband, boyfriend or acquaintance. All of the
Silent Witnesses were murdered within the past decade.
During the unveiling, the silhouettes will be revealed one by one in a solemn public ceremony. Each Silent Witness will be
represented by a reader who will recount her story.
Last year, more than 350 people attended the unveiling, according to Dr. Mary Krueger, director of the Women's Center. Many
who attended were family members or friends of the women represented in the collection, sharing their powerfully painful experiences
of losing daughters, mothers and sisters to domestic violence. Family members will be present again this year, Krueger said.
Co-sponsors for the unveiling of the 2006 Silent Witness collection include the: Bowling Green branch of the American Association
of University Women, Bethany House, BGSU Organization for Women's Issues, Cocoon Shelter, Destiny House, Family and Child
Abuse Prevention Center, Open Arms Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Services, Shay's for Life Foundation, Toledo Take Back
the Night Collective, University of Toledo College of Law Domestic Violence Clinic, VITAL Program and YWCA Battered Women's
Shelter.
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