Evening of Thriver Spirit & Song

Actress Meredith Baxter to join women reclaiming their lives after abuse during “Evening of Thriver Spirit & Song” May 5 at Mandell JCC

Event to benefit Connecticut Alliance for Victims of Violence and Their Families (CT-ALIVE)

Hartford, Conn., April 16, 2012 — While intimate partner violence crimes exact a painful toll on victims, a growing community of women are thriving, not merely surviving, after abuse.

Ask Vanessa Stevens of Waterbury, a singer/songwriter who stopped singing after she left an abusive music partner but found her voice again when she created The Purple Song Project, offering survivors of domestic violence hope, healing and awareness. Ask Jenny of Naugatuck who escaped an abusive marriage and now blogs about her training and competition in marathons and obstacle racing events. Or Susan Omilian of West Hartford, who turned the tragedy of her niece Maggie’s murder by an ex-boyfriend into an opportunity to help women reclaim their lives after abuse as Maggie could not. Her book, The Thriver Workbook: Journey from Victim to Survivor to Thriver contains the motivation guidance Susan has successfully used in her My Avenging Angel WorkshopsTM that she has offered free of charge to women for the last twelve years since Maggie’s death.

These women and others moving beyond similar experiences as well as families, friends and supporters will join another domestic violence survivor, actress and author Meredith Baxter for “An Evening of Thriver Spirit and Song”, a multi-media celebration to be held Saturday, May 5 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Mandell Jewish Community Center (JCC), 336 Bloomfield Ave., West Hartford Connecticut, 06117.

Benefiting the Never Going Back to Abuse Project of the Connecticut Alliance for Victims of Violence and Their Families (CT-ALIVE), the evening will offer live music by Vanessa Stevens, positive energy and uplifting success stories to inspire anyone on a journey of self-discovery, heightened self-esteem and healing after experiencing physical and emotional trauma.

Baxter, author of The New York Times best-seller, Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame and Floundering, will give a talk entitled Breaking Family Ties: Empowering Ourselves to Overcome Domestic Violence. While performing acclaimed roles on television including Family Ties and over fifty movies, Baxter faced domestic abuse, battled alcoholism and breast cancer, and started her own business while raising five children.

General tickets for “An Evening of Thriver Spirit and Song” are $50 each with an advanced sale special offer of two tickets-for-$70.  Student and senior citizen rates are $25. Tickets can be purchased online at thriverspirit.eventbrite.com. A reception, included in price of admission, will begin at 6:00 p.m. and the program will start at 7 p.m. A special half-hour “meet-and-greet” with Meredith Baxter will be held at 5:30 p.m. with an additional $25 donation to CT-ALIVE.

Copies of Baxter’s book Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering and The Thriver Workbook and Companion CD will be available for sale at the event.

For more information about the event, visit thriverspirit.com or contact Susan Omilian at 860-236-2401 or ct-alive@comcast.net. To become a business or individual sponsor of this program, visit thriverspiritsponsorships.eventbrite.com.