Supporting Survivors – Kelsey Donnellan

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 10:15:43 -0500
alumni, blackandgoldrush, current-events, events, feminism, fundraising, good-reads, support-survivors, umbc-women-who-rock, uncategorized

We see you. We believe you. You matter.

Yesterday, across the UMBC campus, community members came together to support the Black & Gold Rush! The Women’s Center is so happy for the donations this year. We raised almost $700 on behalf of our campaign yesterday! We cannot express our gratitude, so we figured we’d let someone else tell a story about how awesome it is to be a part of the Women’s Center. For our final post, we got some stories from a West Coast alumni, the amazing Kelsey Donnellan! Kelsey shares a story about creativity and art as meaningful ways to heal.

Name – Kelsey Donnellan

UMBC Major/ Minor – Interdisciplinary Studies

Hometown – San Jose, CA

Current Job Title/ Employer – Analyst, Health Improvement

How did your time at the UMBC Women’s Center support your current work or career path? The UMBC Women’s Center was instrumental in my success at UMBC and in my career. The staff, resources available, and partners helped me recover from trauma that impacted me everyday. My need to survive affected me in ways I didn’t even know, which is why I needed the kind and gentle support of the Women’s Center.

How would you describe your UMBC experience? My UMBC experience was filled with activities and experiences from clubs to living on campus to working on campus. One of my favorite experiences was with the Women’s Center as I healed from trauma and learned how to be a better advocate for myself and with others.

Share a special moment from your time in the Women’s Center. How did it shape your experience as a survivor? During my second year at UMBC, I worked as an RA and had the opportunity to host events. Another RA and I decided to host spaces for survivors, like us, to create shirts for The Clothesline Project. Art therapy was a major part of my healing. Seeing people come in reminded me the importance of creating these spaces as people processed artistically. I was also reminded that my story, while only mine, was not unique. For those hours we painted, there was a shared understanding of the trauma we experienced and the healing we had left to do.

Kelsey! We thank you for sharing your stories and for the work that you did/ do to help other survivors. There are so many people who benefit from having a supportive community!

UMBC Giving Day Black and Gold Rush is an inspiring example of what the UMBC community can accomplish together. If you would like to support survivors of sexual violence at UMBC, and build a coalition of supportive allies, consider giving to the Women’s Center’s GritStarter campaign. Giving Day at UMBC may be over but our campaign plans to keep going strong through the end of Sexual Assault Awareness Month which is in April.