MONTICELLO – District 5 Legislator Cat Scott read aloud a proclamation to raise awareness of Domestic Violence Awareness Month (see editorial page 6A) during the Health and Human Services meeting on Thursday, October 1.

“The theme for Domestic Violence Awareness Month 2026, ‘With Survivors Always,’ emphasizes moving from awareness to concrete action, standing in solidarity, and addressing the systemic barriers survivors face,” the proclamation reads. Scott said millions of Americans across all age groups, races, genders, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic backgrounds suffer abuse from an intimate partner each year.

Scott said Fearless Hudson Valley battles this trend by providing life-saving services, including answering 12,284 hotline calls, sheltering 111 adults and 65 children, and providing 9,608 emergency shelter bed nights in 2025. Scott said Fearless delivered 181 community presentations and 178 youth workshops in 2025 that focused on healthy relationships, bullying prevention, systems of oppression, and cultural competency.

“Today,” said Scott, “Fearless is here with the Clothesline Project, which hangs t-shirts up [honoring domestic violence victims]; it’s something that’s very personal to me because I know three names out there.”

Fearless Executive Director Kellyann Kostyal-Larrier said the Clothesline Project was started in the 1980s “by women who realized that a very private matter could only be discussed outside over a clothesline, and it generated the idea that we had an art project that people could see shirts designed by not only survivors and their family members but also in honor of the individuals whose lives were taken from us too soon.”

Kostyal-Larrier said the Clothesline Project gives residents an opportunity to see the impact of violence in our communities. “Domestic violence doesn’t just impact the individual survivors and victims, but the network around those individual survivors and victims,” she said. Kostal-Larrier encouraged residents to “walk the line” and honor the survivors in our communities and reflect on those that have been lost.

“We are tired of putting shirts on that line and knowing the names on that line, “ said Kostyal-Larrier, “so we’re committed with all of you to addressing that.”