Politics/Community Involvement

I think people don't understand their privilege, and we as a group, not just Worcester, not just women, but as citizens, as humans, need to be able to understand our privilege and how it intersects with oppression. And so there are so many people—like at Abby's [House], we provide services for women that have all different needs, from substance abuse, to trauma, to rape, to eviction. But here we try to preserve that human dignity. In the community, I don't see that as much. You know, there are a couple of agencies that work hard to provide services, but I think that responsibility should be something that we all share, to make sure that the person next to us is honored as a person and their needs are met. Granted, I know that we can't just say, "Oh I'm going to keep somebody in my house and they're going to have shelter and I'm going to feed everybody and I'm going to clothe everybody," but that person is still somebody that needs to be respected and deserves to be respected. It's just a lot of disrespect. It's a hard time now. It's a hard time to live in. Especially for me being a woman of color, it's very hard. Every day I send my son to school and I'm like, “Oh well, what's going to happen?  Am I going to have to answer questions about why people are getting shot?” It's just a hard time to live in, and I think just a simple gesture of greeting somebody, sharing your privilege, would allow somebody to live more comfortably in an uncomfortable time.

Try to be happy you know? And work hard. I mean I look at Hillary Clinton and the position that she’s in now where she gets so much criticism. But she said something the other day, I think it was on Humans of New York, about how when she started law school and everyone was like, “You're taking a spot from a man who could be here and you shouldn't be here,” and stuff like that and,  “Now some man’s going to have to go to war and die because you're here.” And our generation is so much more lucky [that] we don't face that as much. It’s still out there of course, but not as much as it used to be.  So I think it’s really important to take advantage of all the opportunities that we have and whether for you that means being the best stay at home mom that you can ever be or the best scientist or a teacher or whatever it is just take advantage of the opportunities that we have because they weren't always available and so we should definitely revel in them. We were talking about how my definition of success changed.  I mean I never saw myself as that mom who was going to be on the PTO.  I didn't see that as success, but as I’m seeing my son grow and seeing the impact it has on him now I see that as something that makes me feel successful and so you know taking advantage of all aspects of what it means to be a woman and the opportunities that are available to us is really important.

I went to the Antiquarian Society to read the letters and the oratory a number of times and one day after reading her letters, one day I went to her cemetery. I went there twice and I went to the little office where they keep the ledger of way back—I mean from the beginning of time in this—it's the Hope Cemetery here in Worcester.  And they not only took me to her grave site but they told me that her husband and her were buried side by side and that Abby was buried in the middle and that her feet were facing the stone so that I felt it was okay to sit on her feet, leaning back on her stone.  One day after reading her letters I meditated and that's when the feelings started–I am going to cry—that's when I tapped into her.  It's like her spirit joined me or something it was incredible.  And during the process of the painting and when I was doing the head, I had a long shelf here and I had a large half gallon can there, you see it there. That's my can of mineral spirits and this was full of empty cans and other stuff that I used to have and this was empty. I had stayed up all night long and I had painted it and I had stepped back and everything was dead quiet you couldn't even hear traffic, nothing.  And I said, “Abby Kelly Foster, you are coming to life,” and as those words left my mouth it sounded like something hit really hard on that paint can behind me. I had goosebumps, and it being in the middle of the night! My son and husband were asleep upstairs, I felt like running!  And my hairs were raised up and I said, “No, you’re here, with me, aren’t you?” and from that point on I really felt that she was with me.

Especially working at Abby’s House. We have a shelter for homeless women, with or without children and then we have SRO’s [Single Room Occupancies]–58 for women and then 17 bedroom apartments for women with children. We do have a lot of women that come in broken, they come in domestic violence, mental health or anything like that there and there’s a lot of great resources for women here. This is a place where they feel safe. They feel comfortable. Just getting people to believe in them, and with that support we have a lot of women who are back at school. A lot of people are doing volunteering, a lot of people doing self-help groups and stuff like that there. I have to say, the community’s very good as well. We have the education part too, and we’re in partnership with a lot of different agencies to help women grow and feel good about themselves. We have a lot of women volunteers who have been very successful in business, encouraging these women and also giving them the skills they need for the outside world. We have a lady that comes in and does computers with the women. Another one that does resumes; we have a woman that does financial planning with them. All these skills, that before these women never had, give them more confidence in themselves.

I guess I don’t want anyone else to feel as though they aren't worthy and that somebody has their back. So I want everyone—I want all the young girls that you get to work with to realize that they have a lot of value and that someone really cares about what they are doing.