09/22/2014
Here is something I want to share
Hope and Justice Project takes domestic abuse message to the streets in Fort Kent
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Fort Kent students Lacy Pelletier (left) and Gabrielle Martin create sidewalk art as part of the Chalk it Up Fort Kent domestic violence awareness event Friday.
Julia Bayly | BDN
Fort Kent students Lacy Pelletier (left) and Gabrielle Martin create sidewalk art as part of the Chalk it Up Fort Kent domestic violence awareness event Friday. Buy Photo
By Julia Bayly, BDN Staff
Posted Sept. 19, 2014, at 4:43 p.m.
Barbara Theriault (right) shows a tattoo of her daughter Amy Theraiult, to her friend Carla Caron at the Chalk it Up Fort Kent domestic violence awareness event Friday. Amy Theriault's longtime boyfriend has been charged with her murder. "For the rest of my life wherever I go she will be with me and experience whatever I experience," Barbara Theriault said of the artwork created by Presque Isle tattoo artist Jesse Pinette.
Julia Bayly | BDN
Barbara Theriault (right) shows a tattoo of her daughter Amy Theraiult, to her friend Carla Caron at the Chalk it Up Fort Kent domestic violence awareness event Friday. Amy Theriault's longtime boyfriend has been charged with her murder. "For the rest of my life wherever I go she will be with me and experience whatever I experience," Barbara Theriault said of the artwork created by Presque Isle tattoo artist Jesse Pinette. Buy Photo
Fort Kent area students used chalk and sidewalks Friday to spread awareness of domestic abuse during the annual Chalk it Up Fort Kent event.
Julia Bayly | BDN
Fort Kent area students used chalk and sidewalks Friday to spread awareness of domestic abuse during the annual Chalk it Up Fort Kent event. Buy Photo
FORT KENT, Maine — Nearly four months after her daughter was murdered, allegedly at the hands of her longtime boyfriend, Barbara Theriault on Friday said she will do whatever it takes to prevent another parent from losing a child to domestic violence.
“If I can save one person from going through what happened to Amy, there will be meaning to what happened,” Theriault said Friday afternoon at the annual Chalk It Up, Fort Kent, a community-wide event sponsored by the Hope and Justice Project in which area sixth-graders use colored chalk to write or draw about domestic abuse on the town’s sidewalks.
Coincidently, Friday would have been Amy Theriault’s 32nd birthday.
“This is really hitting home this year,” Tammy Albert, the Hope and Justice Project’s victims’ outreach advocate, said Friday. “We are honoring Amy and all those who are victims of domestic abuse.”
Early in the morning of May 31, the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call about a domestic violence incident at Amy Theriault’s St. Francis home. Witnesses in the home told police they saw her boyfriend, Jesse Marquis, leave the residence with a rifle and enter the woods behind the house.
Theriault’s two daughters were not home at the time of the shooting.
Theriault died of a gunshot wound to the chest and multiple stab wounds to the chest and neck, according to a spokesman for the medical examiner’s office. The death was ruled a homicide.
Following a six-day manhunt, Marquis was arrested and charged with Theriault’s murder. Last month he pleaded not guilty to that charge and remains at the Aroostook County Jail in Houlton.
While October is National Domestic Abuse Awareness Month, Albert said her organization was getting a bit of an early start this year targeting area children.
Hope and Justice staffers already have visited local elementary schools this month to discuss issues surrounding domestic abuse with the students.
“People tend to act like kids don’t know what is going on,” Francine Garland Stark, executive director of the Hope and Justice Project, said. “But they know and it is important to engage them in the conversations.”
Last year half of Maine’s homicides were related to domestic abuse, Stark said.
“Today is about raising awareness, remembering those who have been killed and honoring those who have survived,” she said.
Armed with colored chalk and slips of paper citing domestic abuse statistics, Fort Kent-area sixth-graders fanned out around the West Main Street business district Friday to spread awareness and information.
“These kids really do get it,” their teacher Gail Desjardins said.
“We want people to know domestic abuse is bad and not nice,” Lyndsay Ouellette, 11, said. “People get hurt and we can actually fight against it.”
Her classmate 11-year-old Colby Saucier agreed.
“It’s really bad,” Saucier said. “There can be a lot of hitting and yelling and people get killed [and] it does happen here.”
Allowing the students to let their creativity run wild on the sidewalks of Fort Kent not only helps increase their own awareness of domestic abuse in the community, Stark said, it increases awareness of her organization.
“Much of the work we do is invisible to the general population,” she said. “Events like this make us very visible in the community.”
Hope and Justice Project is the domestic violence resource center in Aroostook County, and its 24/7, free and confidential hotline is available to anyone who has been affected by domestic abuse at 800-439-2323.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence and would like to talk with an advocate, call 866-834-4357, TRS 800-787-3224. This free, confidential service is available 24/7 and is accessible from anywhere in Maine.
