My Nonprofit Reviews

My mantra growing up as a teen girl used to be "over my dead body" around the topic of the boundaries I associated and built up around my precious body. Little did I ever reflect on what I would do to live if the body became the pinnacle of my mortality. When I finally confronted that question, it was during a brutal attack and hostage scenario I survived at 21 years old. In the wake of the incident, my spirit, body and mind were frozen. While still in the throws of daily therapy sessions and first attempts of recovery, a dear friend of my mother told us she was an alumnus of Impact Bay Area, an organization whose mission is based on self-empowerment and self-defense. I enrolled in the Basics Training program and immediately felt the safety to open up and share the story of what happened to me only a month before that first class. I met peers of multiple generations and wonderful instructors who coached and cared for I and my classmates through the entire process. Impact not only changed the way I was able to see self, and helped in the early stages of a journey to find myself again, to reacquaint myself with my body and being; it saved my life and the way I am able to live it. As I prepare to celebrate the 9th anniversary of my survival and rebirth in a matter of days, I find myself a proud volunteer for Impact Bay Area, compelled and inspired to help other women and girls love and protect themselves. Impact Bay Area is: a proclamation of self, of your worth, of your voice and your right to stand up for yourself. Impact Bay Area is self-empowerment incarnate. Their IMPACT is forever embedded in my spirit.
Please empower yourself, your daughters, your sisters, your mothers, grandmothers, wives, friends and each of the women in your life. Talk about violence again women, girls and everyone in our community and ask how and if they have ever been directly affected: 1 in 3 will say "yes I'm a survivor too". We CAN change this statistic.